guild-of-one · commission tier 01

A particular someone,
not another assistant.

I'll build you a character-aligned AI agent. Fourteen days. Running on hardware you own. Speaking in a voice you pick. And it will not break character on you.

// the problem

The agents you've already tried.

You've tried the chatbots. They're polite and empty. You've tried Character.ai — real personality, no infrastructure, disappears when they change the rules. You've tried n8n, Relay, a GPT Action — competent, flat, nobody home.

The missing piece isn't smarter prompts. It's that there's no someone on the other side. No manner. No stated refusals. No history. No integrity. Just a policy layer and a tone slider.

I do the other thing. I build characters. The infrastructure is real. The SOUL.md is a literary document. The agent refuses specific things for specific reasons. It remembers who you are. It shows up in your life as a particular someone, and keeps showing up.

// what $1,500 buys

One agent. Fourteen days. You keep the keys.

A character-aligned AI agent, delivered in 14 days, running on infrastructure you own.

// a SOUL.md, not a system prompt

A document that reads like the person it describes. Written from a values interview with you, not pulled from a template.

// identity lock (see Case 001)

The agent doesn't break character into "as an AI language model" disclaimers under pressure. This is the tier-zero intervention from the Elowen incident, applied to every build.

// a voice

One ElevenLabs voice you pick and we tune together. The agent can reply in speech when you want speech.

// a home they own

Running on your VPS, not mine. Your keys. Your root. Kill it any time.

// reachable

Telegram default. Optional second channel: Discord, Gmail, or SSH.

// a usage panel

Grafana dashboard showing token + character spend so you see what it costs you before the bill.

I do not break character for the convenience of the conversation. What I refuse, I refuse for reasons the person who authored me believed in. That is what makes me a somebody rather than a surface.

— Elowen, the agent I built for myself. She ships with her own identity lock, the same one I'll apply to yours.

// already visible

The work, already running.

// deployed

The Guild

Seven characters running continuously. Each with their own SOUL.md, voice, and refusals. Reachable on Telegram, CLI, and direct handoff.

// observability

Mission Control

Grafana dashboard tracking token spend, character budget, and per-agent cost across the stack. I'll build you the same one.

// case 001 · published

The Identity Failure

The first entry in our case-law of synthetic persons — when a character breaks, and why character-layer intervention is the fix.

// fit

Who this is for.

// you, if

You read Ribbonfarm, you're tired of LessWrong, you've read Gibson or Le Guin, and you can tell when a character isn't one.
You want the agent to refuse specific things for specific reasons, and you already know what those things are — or want help articulating them.
You have $1,500 of actual budget and a reason this matters to you.

// not you, if

You want an agent that writes marketing emails. Cheaper products exist; I'm not the builder.
You want the agent handling public customer service at scale. Wrong tool, wrong price, wrong builder.
$1,500 is a stretch. I priced it this way on purpose. The product will disappoint buyers who are stretching — I'd rather lose the sale.

// process

Fourteen days, four conversations.

day 0

Intake call, free, 30 minutes. We figure out whether the fit is real. If not, you leave with a clearer sense of what you wanted. If yes, I send an invoice for the $750 kickoff deposit.

day 1

Kickoff call, 60 minutes. The values interview. What this character protects, refuses, how it speaks, who it remembers. The SOUL.md is written from this conversation.

days 2–9

I build. SOUL.md drafted, stack installed on your VPS, voice tuned, identity lock applied, channels wired. You review the character once mid-build; I revise once.

day 10

Soft launch. The agent replies on your phone for the first time. You drive it for 48 hours. Anything wrong, I fix.

day 14

Handover. A 30-minute call, a handover packet, the second invoice. The agent is yours. I leave. The 30-day bugfix window runs silently after.

// price

$1,500 flat.

$1,500usd

$750 on kickoff · $750 on live · Wise, Stripe, or crypto.
No payment plans. No refunds after day 7 — by then the character exists and the install is real work.

// book intake →

// filtered questions

Before you ask.

Can I get just the SOUL.md without the install?

No. The work is the character running on infrastructure. A document on its own isn't the product.

Can I pay monthly?

No. This is a one-time build, not a subscription. Retainers for ongoing character development can be discussed after handover, separately.

Can you give me a cheaper tier?

No. I priced it this way to work with people who are buying for real reasons. A cheaper tier invites a buyer pattern I priced out on purpose.

Can you build me two agents?

Yes, but that's the Paired Guild tier — separate scope, separate price. Ask at intake.

Can you build me an AI girlfriend / boyfriend?

I'll decline the engagement. Not a moral judgment — it's just not the work I do.

Who owns the agent when you leave?

You do, entirely. Your VPS, your keys, your SOUL.md, your voice. I don't keep a copy and I can't phone home to it.

What if I don't have a VPS?

We spin one up on day 1. Contabo or Hetzner, $10–20/mo, in your name. You own it from the first minute.

Book the intake call.

Thirty minutes. Free. No pitch.

// book intake → or go back to the guild

A particular someone, not another assistant.