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Autonomous Business Starter

Getting started

Autonomous Business Starter

You can read this before you buy. After checkout, unzip autonomous-business-starter and follow the commands below for the first session on your machine. The longer zero-to-live write-up is docs/SETUP.md, and day-to-day fixes are in docs/RUNBOOK.md.

What you need installed

The first 15 minutes

  1. Open the setup guide

    Unzip the download. Read README.md, then docs/SETUP.md. The setup guide is the path to a live site on free tiers, and it is longer than this first sitting.

  2. Rename the sample brand

    Edit site/src/site.config.mjs. It ships as YourDirectory, with the tagline about tools ranked on public evidence, the contact address [email protected], and the url https://example.com. Change the name, tagline, url and contact email. Leave newsletterFormId and the Stripe fields empty until you have those links.

  3. Install and open the preview

    The zip already includes sample data: 3 categories and 15 tools in site/src/data/directory.json, plus a matching evidence.json. From the site folder:

    cd site
npm install
npm run dev

  4. Look at the preview

    Open http://localhost:4321. You should see the sample directory. Rescoring is optional in this first session. When you want fresh scores, run python scripts/evidence.py from the site folder. It fetches public pages, uses no API key, and writes src/data/evidence.json.

  5. Read the approval gates

    Open AGENTS.md before you schedule anything. It tells the agent to ask you first, and to show the exact text or change, before it sends email or a newsletter, posts to social media, spends money, changes prices, deletes data, force-pushes, creates accounts in your name, or publishes a sponsored placement. Editing site content, running the scripts, building, and deploying the static site are listed as allowed without asking. The four files in routines/ are prompts for later. The daily routine says to log what was added and not to post or email.

Common problems

The build fails after I add a tool
docs/RUNBOOK.md says this is usually a bad category slug or a duplicate slug in site/src/data/directory.json. From the site folder, run npm run build and read the first error.
evidence.py shows low coverage
Some sites block the script. When it cannot check a criterion, that part is left out of the score. The free-tier tick comes from the freeTier field in the kit's own data file (site/src/data/directory.json), not a live check. A tool with no public repository scores zero on the open-source part, and that zero lowers the score. Adding a repo field on an open-source tool gives the script a GitHub repository to check.
The scout queue is empty
From the site folder, python scripts/scout.py reads Hacker News, GitHub and Product Hunt and writes site/data/review-queue.json. If one source fails, the script skips it and continues. The runbook says to run it again later. It needs no API key. GitHub's anonymous search is rate-limited, so an empty run can simply mean the source was skipped.
Deploy cannot authenticate
npm run deploy in the site folder needs CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN and CLOUDFLARE_ACCOUNT_ID in the environment. In PowerShell set them with $env:CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN="..." and the same form for the account id. Keep them out of the project files. The deploy script's --project-name ships as my-directory; docs/SETUP.md says to change that in site/package.json before you create the Pages project.
Wrangler complains on Node 20
The site depends on Wrangler 3. docs/RUNBOOK.md says to use Wrangler 3 on Node 20, and Wrangler 4 on Node 22 or newer.
The agent edited the site or deployed without asking
That matches the "free to do without asking" list in AGENTS.md. Mail, social posts, spending, deletes, force-push and sponsored placements still wait for a yes. Edit that list if you want a prompt before deploy as well.

See it running live: https://vibeengine.lilaforge.com

Back to Autonomous Business Starter for what's included and checkout.