scaffold

Type: Hybrid (Personal / Software / collaborative) Status: Planning Deadline: TBD Created: 2026-06-08

What is this?

An exploration of agentic tooling for the AEC (architecture/engineering/construction) industry — but aimed at everything around the design rather than the design itself. Think “Git + MCP for building projects” rather than “Figma for buildings”. Whether this becomes a product, an internal tool, or a research note is still open.

Motivation

Most current AI-for-AEC startups focus on generative design. The interesting unexplored gap is the project lifecycle scaffolding around design: specs, RFIs, submittals, code compliance, coordination, contract admin — all the document-heavy, workflow-heavy work that agentic systems are particularly well-suited to. David has Claude Code fluency and willingness to vibecode; brother + sister-in-law (architects) bring domain expertise and can validate whether any of this is real pain.

What does success look like?

TBD — explicitly. The first phase is exploration. A reasonable checkpoint: after ~3-4 working sessions, decide whether to (a) commit to a concrete prototype, (b) reframe the angle, or (c) shelve.

Status as of 2026-06-14: post-BIL-annotation pass + stakeholder-landscape pass. MVP candidate shortlist exists (CO history packager, AHJ comment co-pilot, narrative-gap register, pay-app validation as sleeper lender lane) but selection is explicitly on hold pending breadth probes — buyer is no longer assumed to be the architect. Next phase is breadth research (network audit, Procore API depth, AIA contract read, construction-lender/surety market probes) before any prototyping. Substrate assets: assets/aec-lifecycle-map.md (clean), assets/aec-lifecycle-map-annotated.md (BIL + builder takeaways), assets/stakeholder-landscape.md (12 stakeholders × 15 pains).

Status as of 2026-06-25: Pitch-first track opened in parallel to breadth probes. Wedge selected = Change-Order Conversation Packager (anchored on BIL’s Q5 quote — the only unprompted-desire signal with no caveats in his annotation pass). Full PRD drafted with three tiers (POC / MVP / GA) at assets/prd-co-conversation-packager.md. Next artifacts before BIL pitch: sample evidence-brief mockup (load-bearing — must pass domain-expert smell test) + 1-page pitch doc. Breadth probes (network audit, Procore depth, AIA read, lender/surety) continue in parallel — pitch-first does not foreclose buyer breadth.

Collaborators

  • David (build / agentic tooling)
  • Brother + sister-in-law (domain expertise, workflow validation, real-world test cases)

Workspace

  • Notion (shared / collaborative): https://app.notion.com/p/37a76df7a80281408430f076465524af (top-level Scaffold page in Enigma Studio workspace)
  • Local (personal working substrate): ~/topaz/projects/scaffold/
  • Split rationale: Notion = shared layer for architect collaborators (Home, AEC Lifecycle Map, Prototype Ideas, Open Questions, Conversations & Notes, Decisions). Local = David’s working notes, drafts before they’re ready for collaborator eyes. See decisions/001-notion-collaboration-substrate.md.

Technical (provisional)

  • Stack: TBD — likely Claude Code + MCP servers, Git-backed project state
  • Repo: not yet created
  • Deploy target: TBD
  • Intended users: small-to-mid architecture practices (initial hypothesis)

Open questions

  • What’s the unit of work? A “project” in AEC terms vs. a Git-style repo — how closely do those map?
  • Which workflows are document-heavy enough to benefit from agents but standardized enough to be tractable?
  • Is the value in replacing existing tools (Revit, BIM360, Procore) or bridging them?
  • Is this a tool for architects, or a tool for the GC / owner / consultants around them? (active — being investigated in the stakeholder landscape pass)
  • Is there a “product for architects, paid for by owners” precedent in AEC (analogous to Stripe = product for engineers, paid for by finance)? If so, the architect-operator + owner-buyer split has a template.
  • Does Procore have a deep enough API/MCP surface for a third-party app to read RFI logs, submittal logs, CO logs, and pay-apps? Gates the evidence-assembly cluster.