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Bot Procurement Book

Working title. A book in progress, written in public during the Protocol Institute's PiBoWriMo, November 2026.

Is this price fair and reasonable? A short manifesto on how anyone knows a construction price is fair, and what happens to procurement when a bot can answer that question.

Chapters appear here as they are drafted. The source is on GitHub.

Contents

Front matter

Part I. The question

    1. Starting a relationship expecting a divorce (in progress)
    1. The tender is the API (in progress)
    1. How a price is judged today (in progress)

Part II. The machines

    1. Two centuries of one loop (in progress)
    1. Liability shifts to the user's bot (in progress)
    1. The banana peel (in progress)
    1. The bot in the witness box (in progress)

Part III. The proof

    1. Building an estimator in public (in progress)
    1. What an evaluator needs (in progress)

Part IV. The protocol that follows

    1. The protocol that follows (in progress)
    1. The meta-goal (in progress)

Appendices

  • A. Procurement Machines (in progress)
  • B. Reading list (in progress)
  • C. Glossary (in progress)

By Andre Comeau. Text licensed CC BY 4.0.