Alpha

Summer 2027. Code name Aurora. Invite-only. San Diego, a small invited group plus one or two pilot venues, run as target launch events.

Alpha proves two things: that two anonymous people approach each other, and that people felt safe doing it.

Alpha starts from the December 2026 Prototype release: the product already built and deliberately attacked and verified. What remains is legal clearance, taking it to production, and putting it in front of invited outsiders.

Phases are sequential. See Phases.

Phase 1: Clear

Legal clearance obtained. None of it blocks the December Prototype release (operator, 2026-08-31); it becomes binding here, where outsiders arrive. Long-lead items (trademark, counsel review) can and should start during Prototype.

Task	Category	Priority	Description	Why	Status	Issues
ToS and Privacy Policy	Legal	🔴 P0	Final, counsel-reviewed, published, and reachable from the app	Public signup without them is not an option. The pages exist and the app footer now reaches them; the counsel-review and publishing half is undecided	❓ Needs operator input	#141, #837
Trademark clearance	Legal, Business	🔴 P0	Clear the mark for our use and markets. No conflicting USPTO registrations, classes 35 / 42 / 43, roughly $1,450 US	An explicit pre-launch gate	🚧 In progress	#140
Business legalities and governance	Legal, Business	🔴 P0	Entity, Employee Rights Charter, governance docs signed off	Founding paperwork gets harder with users attached	❓ Needs operator input	#896

Phase 2: Ready

Distribution decided, production cut over.

Task	Category	Priority	Description	Why	Status	Issues
App-store-wrapper decision	Eng, Business	🔴 P0	Ship as PWA only, or wrap for the stores	An explicit pre-launch gate, and it changes the timeline	⬜ Not started	#163
Cutover to production	Eng	🔴 P0	Finalize and push to prod, including a full pre-launch token and secret rotation	Everything above is only real once it ships	⬜ Not started	#76
Devops hardening	Eng, Ops	🟠 P1	Senior sign-off before merge, required checks on dev, a rollback path, deploy monitoring	A written norm that nothing enforces is not a control	⬜ Not started	#164
Pre-launch penetration re-test	Eng, Safety	🔴 P0	Re-run penetration testing against the production build	The December pen test proves the December build; six months of change and a new environment need their own pass (operator agreed, 2026-08-31)	⬜ Not started	#865

Phase 3: Recruit

Venues, merchants and invitees committed. Gated on Clear and Ready.

Task	Category	Priority	Description	Why	Status	Issues
Pilot venue agreements	Business, Growth	🔴 P0	Venues that agreed to be pilots, with a named contact and an understanding of what participating involves	Manufactured density needs venues that said yes	❓ Needs operator input	#868
Repeatable pitch	Business, Growth	🔴 P0	The merchant story, partnership terms, objection handling	Recruiting past the first friendly venue needs a script	❓ Needs operator input	#869
Sales and onboarding process	Business, Growth	🔴 P0	Who reaches out, what they send, how a signed merchant gets live	Needs a dedicated process, not ad hoc effort	❓ Needs operator input	#870
Marketing materials and GTM	Business, Growth	🔴 P0	Positioning, launch assets, channel plan	Invited people still need to be told what this is and why	❓ Needs operator input	#326, #199
Partnership model for first merchants	Business, Growth	🟠 P1	Early merchants do not pay: free advertising for life in exchange for data and calibration	Pricing an unproven system is guesswork	⬜ Not started
Partner network activation	Business, Growth	🟠 P1	Working existing contacts into the cohort	Cheapest source of merchants	❓ Needs operator input
"Scheduled lanterns" positioning	Design, Business	🟠 P1	Going somewhere with a buddy, closer to a yoga class than an event	Wrong framing recruits the wrong first users	⬜ Not started	#964
Offer review process	Business, Safety	🟠 P1	Named reviewers plus written guidelines for approve or reject	A review queue with no standard behind it decides ad hoc	⬜ Not started

Phase 4: Run

The launch events themselves.

Task	Category	Priority	Description	Why	Status	Issues
Target launch events	Business, Safety	🔴 P0	What the events are, their shape, and whether they run once or ongoing	The events ARE the experiment design	❓ Needs operator input	#871
Safety-comfort measurement	Safety, Business	🔴 P0	How we ask whether people felt safe, keeping groups visible instead of averaging	One of the two things Alpha exists to answer, and the instrument has to exist before the events do	❓ Needs operator input	#867
First revenue validation	Business	🟠 P1	A merchant pays, and the value is defensible	Proves the model once the free-partnership cohort has run	⬜ Not started

Runs throughout

Task	Category	Description	Status	Issues
Hire a second engineer	Business	Recruit and onboard a second senior engineer	❓ Needs operator input	#873
Google Workspace and Slack	Business, Ops	Shared email, calendar and chat, with the per-seat cost modelled into the billing pipeline first	❓ Needs operator input	#872
Every P0 tracked as an issue	Ops	Every P0 on this page has an issue behind it	🚧 In progress
Business plan finalized	Business	The canonical plan closed out	🚧 In progress