First invoice gate

This week delivers the three concrete artifacts below and the supporting learning/branding/opportunity pack. The scientific or commercial outcome follows the preserved source brief, while the acceptance checks make its evidence testable. The career objective is to turn this work into something a scientist, hiring manager or buyer can inspect.

• Scientific/build priority: Run or prepare the highest-fit discovery conversations; establish loop baseline, data access and measurable audit question.
• Public/profile priority: Prepare a milestone post only if earned; otherwise document the selling lesson without disclosing prospects.
• Career/relationship/commercial priority: Target one scoped audit with half upfront per v4; keep job opportunities alive and prepare follow-ups on three strongest leads.

Read v6 · Week 28 · GATE 28: first Loop Audit sold before Monday. It expands this week's one-row v5 brief into daily build steps and adds the Welcome analogy, Learn it (▶ core and ＋ deeper sources), Run it (repos with a 20-40 minute exercise), the NotebookLM kit and the mentor check below. Standing v6 rules: resource rules, NotebookLM protocol, chapter anatomy. v6 adds depth only; it does not change a goal, gate, output or the 600-minute cap, so this specification still governs execution.

Act VI · Threads: $, EL, R · GATE 28

Where this week sits. - ← From: week 27 calls; weeks 1-26 proof. - → Feeds: weeks 29-30 (delivery), week 32 (case study, second proposal), week 37 (pilot), week 40 (income in the retro). - ⟳ Returns in: your self-image. This gate matters as much psychologically as financially.

Goals. - 🎯 This week: one audit scoped, agreed, half paid; first invoice issued; partner results logged untouched. - 🏁 This gate (28): Money 1. - 🌟 Final: a practice with retainers or a well-chosen job (week 40).

The plan (from v5 Part 7, expanded; gate and output unchanged).

v5 row: 28 | GATE 28: first Loop Audit sold | none (selling week) | Audit scoped and half paid; Paper 3 wet-lab results start arriving | First invoice (any amount). If not: week 29 is a second selling week - Goal: the first invoice exists. - Tue: no study. Use the block for follow-ups. - Build: Mon: discovery calls held; notes structured into the scoping sheet. Wed: proposal (one page: objective, deliverables, two weeks, price, 50% upfront, confidentiality, case-study permission request). Done when sent. Fri: invoice issued on acceptance (legal entity and tax registration ready: monotributo or equivalent, verify with an accountant). Log partner results in enzymelens/validation/raw/ with checksums; no analysis. - Sun: L-Sun only if the client agrees; otherwise a post on "what I learned in five discovery calls" with no names. - Gate 28 passes when: first invoice sent (any amount). If not, week 29 is a second selling week. - Only one thing: the proposal sent.

Mentor check. "Someone paid me for measuring their loop."

• Week 27: inspect its actual evidence and review; source/code artifacts must exist before the dependent task begins.
• Read commitment, evidence, review and the current root TODAY/PROGRESS/QUESTIONS files.
• Read this week's chapter, v6 · Week 28 · GATE 28: first Loop Audit sold, then the standing sections: Part 0 · how to use the document, Part 3 · the scientific thesis, Part 4 · curriculum, Part 8 · the prompt pack and Part 9 · branding and endorsement. The same sections exist in the v5 master, which remains the governing sequence; v6 reproduces them and adds depth. Retained commercial/instrument details come from v4.
• Inspect the actual canonical repository state, available data, existing figures and required human/external inputs. Never assume a previous week succeeded from its folder name.
• Verify current resource links, versions, dataset rights and any live company/venue information before relying on them. Use source catalog; explicitly record inaccessible resources.

Biology/domain unit

Material: No new coursework. Use this block for discovery, objection analysis and scope confirmation.

Produce: One concise applied note, a worked decision/example and unresolved questions.

Understanding check: The note directly supports this week's experiment, collaboration, delivery or career action.

During preparation, write one worked example connected to the week's actual task, one exercise with a separate answer key and five questions. Peter supplies answers; score explanation quality and flag misconceptions in QUESTIONS. Numeric/scientific conclusions require actual data or explicitly synthetic teaching values.

AI/scientific-method unit

Material: Use this block for proposal follow-up, documented invoice prerequisites and partner results intake. Keep a short scientific digest only if it fits.

Produce: One concise applied note, a worked decision/example and unresolved questions.

Understanding check: The note directly supports this week's experiment, collaboration, delivery or career action.

Use the prompt pack: P1 explanation ladder, P2 concept-to-project bridge and P3 quiz. Coding practice belongs within the allocated study/build block. Where the source asks for a favorable scientific result, substitute an honest measured comparison as explained below.

Founder/scientist paper

Select one verified founder/scientific-lead paper relevant to this week's domain. Use P11; save the question, method, numerical result with context, data workflow, three author questions and one connection sentence in founder-paper.md. Keep abstract-only access limitations explicit. On source weeks with no study, prioritize the commercial/submission task and log any skipped digest.

Branding: Prepare a milestone post only if earned; otherwise document the selling lesson without disclosing prospects.

Opportunity action: Target one scoped audit with half upfront per v4; keep job opportunities alive and prepare follow-ups on three strongest leads.

Use career asset contracts. Publish at most the agreed cadence; one figure and one supported number or admitted failure can support multiple drafts. In long-form weeks, prepare a 1,500–2,500-word article from existing evidence within the build/buffer allocation. In release/demo weeks, prepare a 60-second script: problem, input, command/action, result, limitation and proof link.

Verify individuals, jobs and affiliations at execution time. The GridX list and v4 company map are research seeds, not current facts. Do not reveal named company weaknesses or employer/client confidential information. Keep drafted/sent/replied/booked/held statuses separate. The planning request alone does not authorize external messages or publication; honor explicit authorization in the execution session.

If no sale/invoice, week 29 is a second selling week as v5 requires. Do not issue a fictitious invoice to pass the gate or describe an invoice as cash received.

Apply the root scientific evidence contract: provenance; meaningful independent splits; no future-data leakage; baseline comparison; actual denominators/uncertainty; failed cases; human review where required. State whether data are simulated, public experimental, synthetic or partner-provided.

Keep source gates intact, and log scope/time conflicts in review. Missing people, money, access or results must not be replaced with invented evidence. Reduce optional polish first. A specific essential external dependency stays pending while independent preparation continues.

This is Gate 28: First invoice.

Required proof: Actual invoice issued for real agreed work. Track signed scope, amount invoiced, upfront payment and cash received separately.

Reputation interpretation: Money milestone; no reputation promotion. Record target, forecast, actual date and evidence link. The original gate stays incomplete until the required external proof exists.

• Monday artifact satisfies: A real prospect and problem are distinguished from a hypothetical example.
• Wednesday artifact satisfies: No invented customer, tax details, signature, invoice issue or payment event.
• Friday artifact satisfies: Issue the first real invoice only after agreed work and applicable authorization; if no agreement exists, finish the scope/proposal and activate week 29 selling recovery.
• Study pack is prepared; Peter's actual learning/quiz result is recorded separately.
• Branding and opportunity drafts use supported claims and the correct external-action state.
• Reproduction or document checks are recorded with file/version references.
• This week's special gate, if any, has real evidence or remains explicitly pending.
• Review, root progress/log and the next physical action are updated.

Expanded minimum derived from the source goal: Issue the first real invoice only after agreed work and applicable authorization; if no agreement exists, finish the scope/proposal and activate week 29 selling recovery.

Operational first step if stalled: open qualified-audit-scope.md, write the required inputs and produce the smallest checkable example in ten minutes. If a more urgent missing gate dependency controls the week, use the source minimum above.

If the full week does not fit, use P14: retain one gate-critical deliverable and one directly supporting study exercise; record what is skipped versus moved. Do not mark the original full gate passed merely because the minimum was completed. After a missed week, reforecast from actual evidence and avoid a second unexamined lost week.

In review, state exactly what exists, what was verified, what Peter can now explain, which external events remain pending, where the canonical code/data live, and the next file/function or draft paragraph to touch. Link each fact to evidence. Carry scientific assumptions, split definitions and rights constraints forward explicitly.

Prepare Week 28 of this LABLOOP execution plan.
Read execution-plan/specs.md, execution-plan/DECISIONS.md,
execution-plan/GATES.md and
execution-plan/weeks/week-28-first-invoice-gate/specs.md, commitment.md, evidence.md and review.md.
Read prior prerequisite reviews and inspect actual repository/data state.
Use v5 as the governing sequence, the v6 Week 28 chapter
(LABLOOP-Master-Plan-v6.md) as the deeper walkthrough, and v4 only for
retained details.
Produce the full local preparation pack and the exact week-specific files named
in the artifact table. Give me a bounded lesson with exercises/answer key,
daily physical actions, technical runbook or draft, branding drafts and
career/commercial actions. Keep the total to 600 minutes.
Separate prepared artifacts from measured results and my learning completion.
Verify sources and do not invent metrics, citations, papers, people or outcomes.
Do not execute external communications, publication or spending unless the
current session already authorizes the specific action.
Finish by updating evidence/review and TODAY with the next physical action.

v6 expands this row into a full brief, with the gate and output unchanged, inside v6 · Week 28 · GATE 28: first Loop Audit sold. The following is source planning text, not a claim of completion. Apply the explicit evidence corrections in this specification and DECISIONS.md.