In Tropo: Your First Delegation

You read why directing an agent is delegation — a discipline you already run on people. Here you run it on the agent, and you make your first authored change: you set the size of the job before you write it, then you edit the spec yourself. Last rung you borrowed the spec whole. This rung you touch it — two lines — and watch the agent build the small version you asked for, not the cathedral you didn't. About fifteen minutes.

You don't need to have kept last rung's files open. If you have first-tracker.spec.md and outreach-tracker.html in your folder, pick up where you left off. If you don't, Part 1 tells you how to get them back in one paste.

Part 1 — The Spec File

This rung you don't drop in a fresh spec. You reopen the one from rung one — first-tracker.spec.md — and you change it. That's the whole point of the rung: the first edit is yours.

Which folder is it in? The one your agent is working in — the same folder from last rung. If you're not sure which that is, just ask it: "What folder are you working in right now?" — and use the folder it names. Everything here lives in that one folder, same as before.

Don't have the rung-1 files anymore? No problem — you don't need to redo rung one to do rung two. Paste this and your agent will put both files back exactly as they were at the end of rung one:

Recreate the two files from the last exercise in the folder you're
working in: first-tracker.spec.md (the outreach-tracker spec) and
outreach-tracker.html (the single-screen tracker it describes, with
Name, Channel, Owner, Stage, Last touch, Next columns, Dana Reyes as
the one highlighted row, and a "+ Add a contact" button). Just
recreate them as-is — don't change anything yet.

Now the edit. You're going to add two lines to the spec you already have — you're not rewriting the file, you're amending it. The first line sets the appetite: how much this job is allowed to cost. The second adds one new stage a contact can be in — Ghosted, for the ones who went quiet on you. Here's the after-state, so you can see exactly where the two new lines land (they're marked):

# Spec: Outreach Tracker

## Appetite: small, ugly, working — ten minutes, not an afternoon ← NEW LINE 1

## Intent
**Who:** A person doing a round of outreach — job applications, sales
intros, partnership feelers, fundraising, whatever. Someone sending a
batch of "reach out, then wait, then follow up" messages.

**What problem:** After the fifth message you lose the thread. Who did I
already contact? Who owes me a reply? Who have I let go cold? It lives in
your head or scattered across email, and things slip.

**What we're building:** A single-screen tracker — one row per person
you're reaching out to — that shows at a glance who's where in the
pipeline, so nothing falls through and you always know who to nudge next.

## What "done" looks like
- One openable file. You double-click it, it opens in your browser. No app
 to install, no server to run.
- One row per contact. Each row shows:
 - **Name** — the person or organization (plain readable name, nothing
 else jammed in).
 - **Channel** — how you reached out (email, LinkedIn, intro, etc.).
 - **Owner** — who on your side is handling this contact (you, or a teammate).
 - **Stage** — where they are: `To send`, `Sent`, `Replied`, `Ghosted`, or `Closed`. ← EDITED LINE 2
 - **Last touch** — the date you last did something on this one.
 - **Next** — the one thing you'd do next (a short note).
- The current active contact — the one you're waiting on right now — is
 visually obvious at a glance. Exactly one row is highlighted.
- Stages read as colored pills, not raw text: `Replied`/`Closed` look
 settled, `Sent` looks active, `To send` looks quiet, `Ghosted` reads as
 gone-cold (a warning, not a win).
- Two or three example rows already filled in, so you see the shape
 immediately and can edit from there.
- There's a clear, obvious way to add a new contact row.

## One worked example
> **Row:** Dana Reyes · LinkedIn · **Sent** · Jun 30 · "Follow up if no
> reply by Jul 7"
>
> Dana is the contact you're currently waiting on — so her row is the one
> highlighted. You sent the LinkedIn message June 30, she hasn't replied
> yet, and your note to yourself is to nudge her July 7 if it's still
> quiet. One glance at the tracker and you know: Dana is the open thread,
> and July 7 is the date.

## Non-goals (leave these out)
- No login, no accounts, no cloud sync. It's a local file.
- No email integration — it does not send messages or read your inbox. You
 update it by hand.
- No analytics, charts, or "conversion rate" dashboards. It's a status
 list, not a CRM.
- No more than one screen. If it needs scrolling to read, it's too big for
 rung one.

Two new lines, marked. Notice what the appetite line is and isn't: it's a plain sentence at the top of a markdown file. It doesn't do anything mechanically — it changes no code by itself. Its whole job is to tell the agent how much this job is worth, so that when the agent builds, it builds to fit. You'll see it work not as a switch that flips, but as a restraint the agent holds. (And if you want the Ghosted pill to read right, add one more clause to the pill-grammar bullet — that third line under "Stages read as colored pills." It's optional polish, not required; the two marked lines are the edit that matters.)

This is still just a file the agent reads — not yet a governed Tropo file your studio tracks (you give it a uid in its frontmatter and rebuild the studio index; there's no registry to hand-edit). That upgrade is rung four. Today you're editing plain text, the working equivalent of marking up a page in a binder.

Part 2 — The Build Walkthrough

Three turns. First you make the edit (or let the agent make it), then you hand it back for a rebuild, then — the move this rung turns on — you watch the appetite hold. Each turn is a prompt you paste and a look at what comes back.

Same honest caveat as last rung: the conversation is text — copy the prompts straight out. The tracker itself is the one thing you'll see as an image, because its whole point is visual and it's yours. And your agent's exact wording will differ every time — these reply blocks are roughly what you'll see, not a transcript to match. Tropo runs the same way across tools; the words matter, the chrome doesn't.

Step 1 — Make the two edits (or let the agent make them)

You can open first-tracker.spec.md and type the two lines in yourself — it's your file. Or you can direct the edit the way you'll direct everything else: hand the agent the exact change and let it save. Either works. If you'd rather not hand-edit a .md, paste this:

Open first-tracker.spec.md. Add this as the first line under the title:
## Appetite: small, ugly, working — ten minutes, not an afternoon
Then in the Stage bullet, add `Ghosted` to the list so it reads:
`To send`, `Sent`, `Replied`, `Ghosted`, or `Closed`. Save the file.
Don't build anything yet — just make the two edits.

Roughly what comes back:

Done — two edits to first-tracker.spec.md:
1. Added `## Appetite: small, ugly, working — ten minutes, not an
 afternoon` right under the title.
2. Stage now reads: `To send`, `Sent`, `Replied`, `Ghosted`, or `Closed`.
The spec is saved. Nothing built yet. When you're ready, ask me to
rebuild the tracker from the updated spec.

Notice the agent stopped where you told it to: it edited and saved, and it did not build. That's the discipline from the essay — separate the "what to build" from the "now build it." Editing the spec changes nothing on its own; the agent doesn't watch the file. The rebuild is a second, deliberate instruction, and it's the next step.

Step 2 — Confirm the edit landed before you rebuild

Before you ask for a rebuild, make sure the two lines are actually in the file — a thirty-second check that saves you from rebuilding off a spec that didn't save. This is the same instinct you use before you forward a doc: glance at it first.

Paste this:

Show me the top of first-tracker.spec.md and the Stage bullet, so I
can confirm both edits are in before we rebuild.

Roughly what comes back:

Top of the file:
 # Spec: Outreach Tracker
 ## Appetite: small, ugly, working — ten minutes, not an afternoon

Stage bullet:
 - **Stage** — where they are: `To send`, `Sent`, `Replied`,
 `Ghosted`, or `Closed`.

Both edits are in. Ready to rebuild when you are.

Both lines present. Now — and only now — you rebuild.

Step 3 — Rebuild with the appetite in the ask, and watch it hold

This is the move this rung turns on. You're going to ask for the rebuild, and — this is the whole tactic — you're going to name the appetite in the ask itself. Not just "rebuild the tracker." The appetite clause travels with the instruction: small, ugly, working, ten minutes not an afternoon, don't redesign it. That one clause is what keeps the agent from throwing away a working tool and building you a fresh cathedral you'd then have to re-check top to bottom.

Here's why it matters, plainly: without the appetite clause, "rebuild the tracker" is an unsized brief. A literal, tireless agent may cheerfully reshuffle the whole file — and since checking the result is your half of the job, an oversized rebuild isn't the agent's problem. It's yours. The appetite is how you keep the change small enough to check in a glance.

Paste this — the appetite clause is not optional garnish; it's the load-bearing part:

Now rebuild outreach-tracker.html from the updated first-tracker.spec.md.
Respect the appetite — small, ugly, working, ten minutes not an
afternoon. Just make the tracker match the new spec; don't redesign it.

Roughly what comes back:

Rebuilt, and I kept it small like the appetite says — this is a
14-line change, not a redesign. What I did:
- Added a `Ghosted` pill style (muted amber, so it reads as gone-cold
 — a warning, not a win, distinct from the orange 'Sent').
- Added one example row so you see the new stage: Theo Vance · Email ·
 Jun 12 · Ghosted · 'Two follow-ups, no reply — let it go or try
 LinkedIn?'
- Left everything else untouched: Dana's still the glowing row, same
 layout, same add-row button, footer bumped to 'rung 2'.
Open outreach-tracker.html — the new amber pill is on Theo's row at the
bottom. That's the whole change. The appetite kept me from touching
anything the spec didn't ask for.

Reload the file in your browser.

[screenshot: your tracker, matured by one stage] The same tracker from last rung, one screen, no scroll — Dana Reyes still the single glowing "now" row. Below the three original rows sits one new row: Theo Vance · Email · You · a muted-amber GHOSTED pill · Jun 12 · "Two follow-ups, no reply — let it go or try LinkedIn?". The amber reads as gone-cold — quieter than the orange Sent pill, distinct from the green Replied. The footer now reads outreach-tracker · rung 2. Everything else is exactly where it was — the tool grew by one authored stage, it wasn't rebuilt.

Here's the payoff, and it's a subtle one, so look at the right thing: look at the size of the change. Fourteen lines. One pill, one row, one grammar rule, a footer bump. The agent had every opportunity to hand you a redesigned tool — new colors, new layout, a "while I was in here" flourish — and it didn't, because you priced the job before you asked for it. The appetite did nothing you could see in the spec file. It did everything you can see in the diff. That restraint is the whole win of this rung: you set the size, and the size held.

Part 3 — The Verification Checklist

Directing is half the job. Confirming the result is right — not just finished-looking — is the harder half, and this rung it has a specific shape: you're not only checking that the new stage landed, you're checking that the agent stayed small. An oversized rebuild that happens to work is still a failure of the appetite. So don't read this as checkmarks to admire. Perform it. You review other people's work for scope creep all the time — same muscle here.

Go to the tracker and do this now, before you call it done:

Find the new Ghosted row. Theo Vance should be there, below the three original rows, with a muted-amber Ghosted pill. If the new stage isn't visible anywhere, the rebuild didn't take the spec edit — reload once, and if it's still missing, send it back.
Check that Ghosted reads as gone-cold, not as a win. The amber should look quieter and warier than the orange Sent pill and the green Replied pill — a warning, not a settled state. If Ghosted looks celebratory or identical to Sent, the pill grammar from the spec didn't land.
Count the highlighted rows. There must still be exactly one — Dana. Adding a stage must not have lit up a second row. If two rows glow, the "one open thread at a glance" promise broke in the rebuild.
Confirm nothing else changed — this is the appetite check. Same layout, same columns, same + Add a contact button, Dana still the glowing row. If the colors moved, the layout reshuffled, or "improvements" showed up you never asked for, the agent overran the appetite — even if it all works. Send it back to the size you named.
Click + Add a contact, then read the new row. A blank, editable row appears — and it comes in as To send, not Ghosted. That's expected: the add-row button always makes To send rows; you set a contact to Ghosted by editing the file, the same "edit the file to keep it" model as last rung. Nothing's broken — just know the new stage isn't a click-to-pick option, it's a hand edit.

Now fill in the receipt — with what you saw, not what you hoped:


What was asked	Two authored edits to the spec you already had: an appetite line at the top, and one new `Ghosted` stage. Then a rebuild that respects the appetite — match the new spec, stay small, don't redesign.
What you can now do yourself	Set the size of a job before you write it, edit a spec to add a stage, and — the load-bearing one — hand a rebuild back with the appetite in the ask so the agent builds the small version and hands you a change you can check at a glance instead of a redesign you'd have to re-verify whole.
What the record shows	`first-tracker.spec.md` now carries the appetite line and the `Ghosted` stage you added. `outreach-tracker.html` grew by one row and one pill — a 14-line diff from last rung, footer bumped to `rung 2`. The evidence isn't just that `Ghosted` appeared; it's that nothing else did. The small diff is the proof the appetite held.
What's not done yet	The appetite line is prose, not a control — it steers the agent, it doesn't enforce itself; a differently-worded rebuild prompt could still invite a redesign, which is why you hand it the appetite clause every time. The `Ghosted` stage is set by editing the file, not picked in the UI. And the spec is still just a file in your folder — not yet a governed Tropo file your studio tracks (you give it a uid in its frontmatter and rebuild the studio index; there's no registry to hand-edit). That upgrade is rung four; authoring a spec of your own from scratch is rung four too. Today you made your first authored edit and held the size. That's the win.

If the new stage didn't appear, or Ghosted looked like a win instead of gone-cold, or a second row lit up, or the agent overran the appetite and redesigned things you never asked for — you caught it, which is exactly the job. Send it back:

The rebuild went past what I asked. Respect the appetite — small,
ugly, working. Keep the tracker exactly as it was and only make it
match the new spec: add the `Ghosted` stage as a muted-amber pill that
reads gone-cold, on one new example row. Don't change the layout,
colors, or anything the spec didn't ask for.

Directing includes rejecting an overrun. Sending back a build that did too much is not the loop failing — it's the appetite working.

Part 4 — What You Now Have in Your Studio

Last rung you borrowed the spec whole. This rung you touched it — you set the size of the job, added a stage, and watched the agent build the small version you priced, not the cathedral you didn't.

In your folder, right now:

A tracker matured by one authored stage — outreach-tracker.html, still the same working tool, now with a Ghosted stage for the contacts who went quiet. It grew by fourteen lines, not a redesign. Use it for your next round of outreach — Theo's row is exactly the kind you'll want.
A spec you've now authored into — first-tracker.spec.md, carrying the two lines you added: an appetite that sizes the work, and a stage that changes what the tool can show. The spec is the program, and now you've written to it, not just from it.
Your second receipt — the checklist above, filled with what you actually saw, including the appetite check: proof that you can direct a change and hold it to the size you named. That habit — price the job, then verify it stayed priced — is the one you'll carry up every rung after this.

It's doable. It's not automatic — you had to name the appetite in the ask, and you had to check that the agent stayed inside it. But you did both, and the change came back small enough to trust at a glance. That's the delegation, run right: you sized it, you handed it off, and you got back exactly the job you asked for. Next rung: you learn what your agent is genuinely good at, so you staff the work to its strengths. For now — you set the size, and the size held.