Directory Engine

Leonard-powered niche directory business (inspired by Startup Ideas Podcast).

A directory is curated data: "here are the best X in this topic." Built for AI agents. Research agent produces high-quality Markdown pages daily; Leonard (engineer) publishes them. Later: affiliate collection + outbound deal agents. Newsletter on subdomain for sponsors.

Target: $10K–$100K/month once traffic compounds. SEO shift favors curated sources for ChatGPT / Google AI Overviews.

Core Playbook (for Leonard / Hermes)

1. Pick the niche — something with taste (e.g. local AI tools & LLM stacks, El Dorado County verified service providers, party board games, pickleball gear). Record decision in decisions.md.
2. Site foundation — Astro (excellent for static directories). Structure under src/content/ or pages/ as Markdown collections.
3. Research agent — Daily: pick next brand/item → investigate (web, X, reviews, pricing, differentiators) → write polished Markdown page with frontmatter (title, slug, tags, affiliate-ready fields, evidence).
4. Engineer (Leonard) — Receives Markdown → validates → commits to this repo (or site repo) → triggers build/deploy if configured.
5. Rinse & repeat until thousands of monthly visits.
6. Only after traffic: agent that harvests referral/affiliate links + does outbound for deals. Warm traffic → newsletter sponsors.

Rule: Never solicit deals before traffic exists.

Repo Layout

directory-engine/
├── README.md                 # this file
├── decisions.md              # niche choice, rationale, dates
├── status.md                 # current state, next actions for Leonard
├── agents/
│   ├── research-prompt.md    # system prompt + workflow for research agent
│   ├── engineer-prompt.md    # Leonard publish checklist
│   └── outbound-prompt.md    # future: referral + deals (post-traffic)
├── templates/
│   └── page.md               # Markdown page template with frontmatter
├── pages/                    # generated / curated pages (or symlink to Astro content)
│   └── _index.md
├── src/                      # (future) Astro site source
└── scripts/                  # optional helpers

Leonard Operating Instructions

• Read status.md and decisions.md first on every run.
• Use research agent prompt to produce one new page per cycle.
• Commit with clear message: feat(page): add <slug> — <one-line summary>.
• After commit, update status.md with what was done and next candidate.
• Prefer verified facts + sources. No hallucinated claims.
• Keep pages useful for both humans and AI overviews (clear structure, lists, comparisons).

Next Actions (initial)

1. Decide niche → write decisions.md.
2. Flesh out agents/research-prompt.md and templates/page.md.
3. Seed 3–5 initial pages manually or via first agent run.
4. Stand up minimal Astro site (or pure Markdown + static generator) and point deploy.
5. Wire daily cron / Hermes schedule for research → Leonard publish loop.

Links

• Source idea: https://x.com/startupideaspod/status/2091238981337858473
• Gitea: https://gitea.vps1.afterthedemo.com/Tony_tech/directory-engine
• Related: Tony_tech/veripath, Tony_tech/personal-agent-os, Tony_tech/agent-outputs