
**AI Product Builder — describe a product, approve the spec, ship the software.**
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[](https://greatcto.systems/proof)
```bash
npx great-cto init
```
[Website](https://greatcto.systems) · [One real run →](https://greatcto.systems/proof) · [Live demo](https://greatcto.systems/r/CsqYVXs1Vibac5yp) · [Discussions](https://github.com/avelikiy/great_cto/discussions) · [Changelog](CHANGELOG.md)
[Русский](docs/ru/README.md) · [简体中文](docs/zh-CN/README.md) · [繁體中文](docs/zh-TW/README.md) · [日本語](docs/ja/README.md) · [한국어](docs/ko/README.md) · [Español](docs/es/README.md) · [Português](docs/pt-BR/README.md) · [Deutsch](docs/de/README.md) · [Français](docs/fr/README.md)
---
## Build the product, not just the code
**You describe the product. great_cto ships it.** Not a snippet, not a scaffold — a real,
deployed application with a backend, a frontend, generated tests, and a live URL. You make
exactly **one decision: approve the spec.** Everything after — architecture, data model,
build, review, deploy — runs unattended. That's the default for reversible work; an
irreversible change — a data-model migration, a payments or auth path, anything that
deletes data — opens additional gates on purpose, because "one decision" should mean
low-risk, not unsupervised.
It's an **AI Product Builder**, not another coding-agent loop. The orchestration layer *above*
the coding agent you already use: a team of specialist agents that plan, build, review, and
gate the work — so one person ships like an engineering org.
> **One real feature: idea → merged PR in `1h 26m` for `$3.40` in LLM cost.** The traditional
> path for the same feature was ~170 hours and ~$42K. [See the full trace →](https://greatcto.systems/proof)
It builds across 15 US industries — home & field services, professional services,
retail/e-commerce, proptech, fitness, marketing & creator, HR/recruiting, construction,
logistics, restaurants, and the regulated verticals allied health, dental, insurance, accounting
& tax and law firms — which collapse into **6 reusable build pipelines** (CRUD vertical-SaaS,
booking, CRM, dashboard, marketplace, content/media). One command ships any of **60 products**.
See [docs/strategy/BUILD-PIPELINES.md](docs/strategy/BUILD-PIPELINES.md).
```
describe a product
│
spec synthesis ── architecture · data model · screens (automated)
▼
👤 CTO gate — approve the spec ← the one human checkpoint
│
scaffold → backend → frontend → integrate → test → deploy (automated)
▼
shipped product · repo · live URL
```
CI and generated tests are the quality gate — you sign the **direction**, not every line.
## Under the hood (for the CTO who runs it)
→ *The builder-facing story of this surface: [greatcto.systems/build](https://greatcto.systems/build)*
Every product is built by a pipeline of specialist agents — architect, design-advisor, senior-dev,
QA, security-officer, devops — that runs spec → scaffold → backend → frontend → tests → deploy.
**You make one decision: approve the spec.** Everything after is automated. The pipeline is
risk-tiered — a maintenance fix opens no gate (CI is the gate), a reversible feature opens only the
plan gate, and an irreversible change forces the full set — so ceremony scales with blast radius,
not with paperwork. CI, the build's own generated tests, and a **cross-model review** (a different
model family red-teams the diff, so review isn't blind to its own author's mistakes) are the quality
gate that makes it safe to let the pipeline run to deploy. And approving the spec isn't a one-way
door — if a structural spec error surfaces mid-build, any agent can raise an objection that re-opens
the gate, so a long build is recoverable, not finish-bad-or-restart.
**One gate, where it matters.** Build steps are risk-tiered: a reversible change builds and ships
behind CI; an irreversible one — a production deploy, a schema migration, a new write-capable
integration — escalates to the CTO gate and the frontier model before it runs. You sign the spec
and the high-blast-radius calls; the rest runs straight through, enforced in code, not just policy.
## By the numbers
| | |
|---|---|
| One feature, end to end (real run, fully traced) | **1h 26m · $3.40 LLM** vs ~$42K / ~170h traditional |
| An earlier CLI-feature run, same pipeline | $2.39 LLM vs ~$5,460 human-equivalent; security caught 2 defects QA had passed |
| Monthly cost (20 pipeline runs) | **~$34** |
| Target US industries | **15** (home services · retail · proptech · fitness · HR · healthcare · insurance · legal · …) |
| Buildable products | **60** across the 15 industries |
| Reusable build pipelines | **6** (CRUD · booking · CRM · dashboard · marketplace · content) |
| Specialist agents | **67** |
| Generated-product quality (measured) | **89/100** across all 6 build archetypes — reproducible `product-score` harness (quality-machinery score; a floor, not deep correctness) |
→ [Full trace with all artefacts](https://greatcto.systems/proof) · [the 6 pipelines](https://greatcto.systems/pipelines)
## How it works
**`npx great-cto init`** — scans your stack and writes `.great_cto/FLOW.md` with the pipeline for your product: the agents, the build archetype, and the single CTO gate.
**`/start "describe the product"`** — architect and design-advisor draft the spec, data model and screens. You review and approve it at the **one gate** — `gate:plan`.
**The pipeline ships it** — senior-dev scaffolds and builds with TDD, QA runs the generated tests, devops deploys. No further approval needed for a reversible build.
## Three products — one pipeline
Same command, different product. The build archetype shapes the stack and integrations:
| | **Dispatch app** | **Class-booking app** | **Profitability dashboard** |
|---|---|---|---|
| Archetype | CRUD vertical-SaaS | Booking / scheduling | Dashboard / analytics |
| Stack | Next.js · Postgres · shadcn | Next.js · Postgres · cal | Next.js · warehouse-lite · charts |
| Integrations | Auth · RBAC | Stripe · Twilio | source connectors |
| Human gates | `gate:plan` (the CTO gate) | `gate:plan` | `gate:plan` |
→ See the 6 pipelines: [greatcto.systems/pipelines](https://greatcto.systems/pipelines)
## The dashboard you'll actually check
`great-cto board` opens at `http://localhost:3141` — the build board: realtime SSE, the live pipeline with its risk-tier badge (one CTO gate · cheap judge), per-agent cost, 30-day LLM spend vs human-equivalent baseline.
**It populates itself — no manual ceremony.** The first session in a project auto-generates a starter code map (`CODEBASE.md`); every agent run records a verdict that feeds the metrics; every session auto-saves a log and extracts lessons on exit. You don't run `/audit` or `/save` to fill the board — you just work, and the memory, metrics, and logs fill in.
**Built by [@avelikiy](https://github.com/avelikiy)**
*Stop being the only person who can ship.*