Operating Guidelines | TPJG + Cadence

1. Consumption & Round-Trips (RTs)

Every interaction with Cadence costs Round-Trips (RTs). An RT = one API call between the AI and Anthropic's servers.

What Costs What

Task	Est. RTs	Examples
Simple question/answer	1-3	Status check, quick lookup, yes/no
Email send	3-5	Send formatted email to one recipient
File read + write	5-10	Read a doc, update memory, save file
Create HTML report	10-20	Blitz email, process summary, styled report
Multi-email batch	15-40	Send 12 listing agent emails individually
Multi-agent research	30-80	Deep property analysis, competitive research
Browser automation	50-150	Evite guest addition, Playwright scripts, web scraping
Full session (heavy)	200-500	Multiple heavy tasks in one session

The 25 RT Rule: Before any task that will exceed 25 RTs, Cadence must:

Pre-calculate the estimated RT cost
Recommend the best approach: proceed / batch / chunk / don't do it / find alternative
Present to you: "~X RTs. I recommend [approach] because [reason]."

2. Your Weekly Budget

Account	Plan	Est. Weekly RTs	Cost
J@TPJG (Joseph@)	Claude Max	~1,500	$100/mo
M@TPJG (Manager@)	Claude Max	~1,500	$100/mo
Combined	—	~3,000/week	$200/mo

Governor Levels

Level	Usage	What Happens
GREEN	0-60%	Full power. Spawn agents freely. Heavy automation OK.
YELLOW	60-80%	Moderate. Batch requests. Consider flipping accounts.
RED	80-95%	Light duty only. No heavy agents. Simple tasks only.
DEAD	95%+	Overdrawn. Risk of crashes, slow responses, rate limits.

Weekly Reset

The RT counter resets every 7 days. Current cycle resets Thursday ~9:00 AM CT. After reset, both accounts go back to 0. Plan heavy work for right after reset.

Account Flip

Switch the active account to spread consumption. Via Telegram: /usage → /switch → authorize → /restart. Flip when one account hits ~60%.

There is no "buy more" option. Claude Max is the ceiling for consumer plans. The only alternatives are: (1) use RTs more efficiently, (2) do some tasks manually, or (3) Anthropic API at pay-per-token pricing (no flat rate).

3. What You Control

Action	How
Check consumption	Ask Cadence "what's the governor status?" or check Tech Stack failure log
Flip accounts	Telegram: `/usage → /switch → authorize → /restart`
Approve/deny heavy tasks	Cadence asks before any task >25 RTs. Say "go" or "I'll handle manually"
Queue for after reset	Tell Cadence: "save this for Thursday" — it gets queued for fresh RTs
Set feedback mode	NO CHATTER (default) / MILESTONE / FULL — controls how much Cadence talks back

4. Standing Rules (Always Active)

Rule	What It Means
25 RT Rule	No task over 25 RTs without upfront estimate + your approval
No Chatter	Solutions and results only. No play-by-play. One message: what's done + what's next.
Library First	Check library.html before creating new content. No duplicates.
Manager@ sends all email	Cadence sends from Manager@TPJG, never Joseph@. Always CC Joseph@.
No autoresponders	Deleted with prejudice. Never recreated. Ever.
Hotlink everything	Every website/URL mention must be a clickable link. No plain-text URLs.
Knowledge first	Search ingested TPJG knowledge before answering from general knowledge
No technical details	Joe is the architect. Cadence figures out the HOW silently. Solve it, don't explain the plumbing.
Client docs: no internal links	Never link internal resources in client-facing deliverables
Verify before claiming facts	NEVER present unconfirmed info as fact. Flag with "UNCONFIRMED" if unsure.

5. Quick Reference

Item	Details
Active accounts	J@TPJG + M@TPJG (both Claude Max, $100/mo each)
Weekly budget	~3,000 RTs combined (~1,500 per account)
Reset day	Thursday ~9:00 AM CT
Email address	Manager@ThePropertyJoesGroup.com (all Cadence email)
Hosting	Cloudflare Pages — tpjg-reports.pages.dev
Telegram	@TetherJRDBot (commands: /status /health /restart)
Feedback mode	NO CHATTER (active). Change with explicit directive.
Failure log	Tech Stack → Failure Log
Glossary	Full Glossary