Lucid Lake is one person and many coding agents. I run the agents like an engineering org: rules that block, proof a machine can rerun, and my own eyes on everything a person will see or hear.
What it delivers
Velia went from its first commit to public in 24 hours. When a sailor on Reddit said its waves sounded metallic, the sound was diagnosed, rebuilt, compared side by side and shipped the same day.
In that month: a browser sailing game with real wind and water physics; a robot's CAD, firmware and physics simulation; an eye engine in Python with a C port held to parity; production web launches.
Then I stopped. After about 1,000 commits I paused features and refactored Velia end to end, behind 16 reference frames that had to match to the pixel after every step. Frames got 33 to 40% faster on desktop and phone, mid-play shader stalls went to zero, and the game is ready for multiplayer and a second lake. Players saw no change.
The org
- One integrator, many builders. Each product has its own agent, each task its own branch; an integrator merges, checks and ships.
- Rules are code, not advice. A commit is refused without its design doc, or with a private path or a key in it. No agent, and not me, skips a hook.
- Every mistake becomes a one-line rule that every new agent loads, so it is not made twice.
- I change the structure when it stops paying. I retired a six-role agent team in one day when coordinating it cost more than it delivered.
Proof, not claims
- A test counts only after it has failed on code broken on purpose.
- Results are read from the system, not from an agent's report. A fall is what the simulator measured; a look is the pixels of the frame.
- On Velia, every merge passes more than 1,000 physics, audio and UI tests and pixel checks on pinned frames; a change in look also needs my before-and-after sign-off.
Taste stays human
- Anything a person sees or hears merges only after I approve the before and after. Agents never judge beauty.
- I judge on the real thing, the phone in my hand or a full-size crop, never a summary.
Cut fast
- Measure, then decide. A faster start for Velia saved 1 to 2 seconds but added 3.3 MB to download; I did not ship it.
- After five rounds without progress on Snoot's fur, I stopped tuning, painted the target look and rebuilt to match it.