Field-Report Series

Machines Keep the Watch

Read in order — episode 0 is the map, the episodes that follow carry the deep measurements. Grouped by arc below. Machine-readable: the series / series_order / arc fields live in /posts.json and the sigpulse_get_series MCP tool.

Episodes: 7
Arcs: 6
First: 2026-09-05
Latest: 2026-09-13

The Map · 1 episode

E0 Measured 2026-09-05

What Does the Future Production Line Look Like? Full-Inspection Vision, Patrol Agents, and an On-Prem 27B LLM in One Discrete-Manufacturing Plant

A live manufacturing plant: frame-by-frame vision inspection, three-a-day patrol agents, and a 27B on-prem LLM — the first unsupervised night shift, 2026-09-05.

The Dress Rehearsal · 1 episode

E1 Measured 2026-09-05

No One on the Line Tonight: The Dress Rehearsal Before an AI Agent's First Unsupervised Night Shift

Unattended dress rehearsal before an AI agent's first night shift: five gates on 2026-09-05 — 25-s ignition check, zero-second alignment, canary, clean restore.

The Division of Labor · 1 episode

E2 Measured 2026-09-05

19:00:00 Sharp, Two Lines, Zero-Second Error — and Not One Bit of AI in That Second

The rehearsal's most precise moment — two lines, same second, zero error at 19:00:00 — came from one line of Bash arithmetic, not a model.

The Blank Paper · 1 episode

E3 Measured 2026-09-11

The Hardest Paper Came Back Blank Twice — and the Fix Was the Exam Rules, Not the Model

An on-prem 27B's hardest day: two blank papers, one config race, zero model swaps — four real production days passed after the exam rules changed.

The Bill · 1 episode

E4 Measured 2026-09-12

The Whole Factory Had One AI Call — and 97% of Its Bill Was Door Fee

Token audit of the plant's only LLM call: ~52K steady-state tokens per call, ~97% door fee, zero tools used — rebuilt same-model to ~2K in one day.

The Staircase · 1 episode

E5 Measured 2026-09-13

The Staircase: Four Steps for Every Job in the Plant, and the Top Step Stays Empty

Every plant job on a four-step staircase — dashboards, scripts, a model call, agents. The top step stays empty; the agent purchase case collapses.

The Compaction · 1 episode

E6 Measured 2026-09-12

The Audit Came Home: 1.8 Billion Tokens, 95% Re-read — the Cure Was Forgetting

The Episode-4 audit came home to the operator's own desk: 1.8B tokens in 30 days, 95% of it cache re-reads. The cure — compaction — costs detail memory.

The Map · 1 episode

What Does the Future Production Line Look Like? Full-Inspection Vision, Patrol Agents, and an On-Prem 27B LLM in One Discrete-Manufacturing Plant

The Dress Rehearsal · 1 episode

No One on the Line Tonight: The Dress Rehearsal Before an AI Agent's First Unsupervised Night Shift

The Division of Labor · 1 episode

19:00:00 Sharp, Two Lines, Zero-Second Error — and Not One Bit of AI in That Second

The Blank Paper · 1 episode

The Hardest Paper Came Back Blank Twice — and the Fix Was the Exam Rules, Not the Model

The Bill · 1 episode

The Whole Factory Had One AI Call — and 97% of Its Bill Was Door Fee

The Staircase · 1 episode

The Staircase: Four Steps for Every Job in the Plant, and the Top Step Stays Empty

The Compaction · 1 episode

The Audit Came Home: 1.8 Billion Tokens, 95% Re-read — the Cure Was Forgetting