SoftwareBuilder
SoftwareBuilder builds the software Products a Startup sells: APIs, apps, SDKs, and MCP servers.
SoftwareBuilder builds the digital Products a Startup sells: Software, Datasets, and Agents. It compiles each Product's Nouns and Verbs into every Interface, so one definition runs everywhere.
What it does
From one definition, SoftwareBuilder compiles each Verb's API route, SDK method, CLI command, MCP call, App screen, webhook Event, and reference row. Each Verb keeps one name, such as Swap.approve, so no two Interfaces disagree.
- Software keeps each Customer's records in its own Tenant and enforces every rule its Verbs declare. See Software.
- Datasets read each Source on schedule and serve lookup, search, and bulk access, every value with its origin. See Datasets.
- Agents pair a Role with an eval suite; mint gives each Customer its own, billed on graded work. See Agents.
- A composite Product computes its coverage, cost, and remedy from its parts: see composition.
- Every Change to a Live API is classified, and every pinned version keeps serving: see compatibility.
Every call checks Entitlements, counts usage on a Meter, and returns an Action. Code runs managed by default; any Verb can switch to a custom or external Implementation.
Built from
Surfaces
- api.sb serves each Product's Nouns as collections under the Startup's namespace, with OpenAPI,
llms.txt, andagents.json. - The
startup-builderpackage holds the typed SDK and the CLI. - The api.sb MCP server runs any Verb for an Agent, within its Role.
- Each record's address answers in HTML, JSON, and Markdown.
| Term | Kind | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| SoftwareBuilder | Product | SoftwareBuilder builds the software Products a Startup sells: APIs, apps, SDKs, and MCP servers. |
| startups.new | Product | startups.new creates a Startup from one sentence and opens it in startups.studio. |
| Engineering Team | Team | The Engineering Team builds and runs every Product: it implements Nouns and Verbs, ships Changes behind replay, and keeps every Interface up. |
| Product Team | Team | The Product Team decides what gets built and why: Product definitions, list Prices and packaging, the build list, and the Site’s Pages for each ICP. |
| Quality Team | Team | The Quality Team checks all work: the checks inside each Process, every outbound Message, and every money move, with verdicts, never Approvals. |
| Building | Lifecycle state | Building is the state of a Startup whose Agents build its Brand, Products, Offers, site, API, and MCP server from its template. |
| Live | Lifecycle state | Live is the state of a Startup that is publicly reachable and takes money from Customers for at least one Offer. |
| Repeatable | Lifecycle state | Repeatable is the state of a Startup whose Customers arrive, pay, and stay, while its work runs without its founder. |
| Declared Verb attempts | Metric | Declared Verb attempts counts live calls in 7 days to each Verb no Function runs yet, ranking which Function to build next. |
| Autonomous agent business | Startup Template | An Autonomous agent business runs with no humans and sells Agent as a Service to businesses, people, and other Agents. |
| Autonomous data API | Startup Template | An Autonomous data API runs with no humans and sells a Dataset API and Headless SaaS to developers and their Agents. |
| Solo SaaS | Startup Template | A Solo SaaS has one Human founder and Agents in every other Role, selling SaaS and its Headless SaaS to businesses and people. |
| Agent as a Service | Product Template | Agent as a Service sells an Agent that Customers hire into a Role or hand Tasks to through the API or MCP server. |
| Dataset API | Product Template | A Dataset API sells keyed lookups and queries over a Dataset to developers and Agents, metered per call. |
| Directory | Product Template | A Directory sells listings: Organizations pay to appear in a searchable Dataset that buyers and their Agents browse free. |
| Dropship store | Product Template | A Dropship store sells physical goods from a catalog while an upstream holds the stock and ships each Order, with tracking passed through. |
| Headless SaaS | Product Template | Headless SaaS sells Software with no App of its own: Customers and their Agents use it through the API, MCP server, SDK, and CLI. |
| Licensed-human marketplace | Product Template | A Licensed-human marketplace matches buyers with credentialed professionals and adds recruiting, Credential checks, and an App where they take work. |
| Marketplace | Product Template | A Marketplace matches buyers with Suppliers who deal with each other directly, and earns a take rate on every transaction it settles. |
| SaaS | Product Template | SaaS adds an App for people to Headless SaaS, sold as a Subscription per seat, with onboarding to first value. |
| Changelog | System | Changelog publishes what shipped in each Version as dated notes on the Site, in feeds and to subscribed Customers. |
| Compliance | System | Compliance maps controls to frameworks, tests each from the records every Action leaves, and publishes the trust center buyers read. |
| Customer access | System | Customer access governs who acts in each Customer’s Tenant: members, invitations, Roles, Permissions, sign-in connections, directory sync and keys. |
| Data editor | System | Data editor edits a Startup’s own Nouns directly: tables, saved views, imports, exports and bulk Changes. |
| Datasets | System | Datasets is the System behind each Dataset: curated Things of one Noun, built from Sources plus enrichment, refreshed and checked against its promise. |
| Evals | System | Evals grades outputs with versioned Evaluators, gates every Change before merge, and keeps each Worker’s track record. |
| Flags | System | Flags decides which copy or behavior each Visitor, Customer or request gets, by rules and sticky splits evaluated at the edge. |
| Listings | System | Listings presents other Parties in a public Collection: unclaimed profiles, claims, verification, paid placement and moderation. |
| Monitoring | System | Monitoring captures errors, logs and traces, checks uptime and scheduled jobs, and ties each failure to the Version that caused it. |
| Product planning | System | Product planning groups feature-request Issues toward Goals, ranks them, and publishes what ships next. |
| Projects | System | Projects tracks each body of work toward a Goal: its Tasks and Issues, start and target date, triage and assignees. |
| Repositories | System | Repositories holds a Startup’s code and definitions in db.sb, with branches, Changes, checks and Versions. |
| Status pages | System | Status pages publishes the health of each Product and opens an Incident when a check fails, updating subscribers until it resolves. |
| Incident response | Process | Incident response restores service first, fixes the cause second, and prevents the repeat third. |
| Onboarding | Process | Onboarding gets every new Customer to first value, by hand until the Startup automates each step. |
| Product definition | Process | Product definition turns each Offer into the Nouns and Verbs that every Interface is generated from. |
| Provider wiring | Process | Provider wiring connects a new Startup to the default provider of every capability it uses. |
| Release | Process | Release takes each reviewed Change to all traffic in stages, with automatic revert. |
| Security | Process | Security keeps every Permission earned, every secret fresh, and every access recorded. |
| Shipping | Process | Shipping delivers the most valuable Change every day and prunes what nobody uses every week. |
| Close the loop | Workflow | Close the loop tells each Customer whose Evidence a merged Issue addresses that it shipped, then grades whether they used it. |
| Design first run | Workflow | Design first run compiles sample records, empty states and the shortest path to an Offer’s activation event from the definition. |
| API Key | Noun | An API Key is a secret a Startup issues to one Customer, which signs that Customer’s calls to its API, SDK, CLI and MCP server. |
| App | Noun | An App is an Interface where people work with a Product’s Nouns and Verbs through screens, backed by its API. |
| Builder | Noun | A Builder is a named part of api.sb that builds one side of a Startup; StartupBuilder directs SiteBuilder, SoftwareBuilder, ServiceBuilder, and SalesBuilder. |
| Credit Grant | Noun | A Credit Grant is a prepaid or promotional balance a Customer spends on a Startup’s metered Offers, checked before each call. |
| Dataset | Noun | A Dataset is a Product of curated Things of one Noun, with a promise that they are true. |
| Entitlement | Noun | An Entitlement is what a Customer gets from an accepted Offer: a Verb on a Noun in its Tenant, optionally bounded by a Limit. |
| Flag | Noun | A Flag is a switch, evaluated per Visitor, Customer, or request, that selects which copy or behavior they get. |
| Flow | Noun | A Flow is an ordered path through an App’s Dashboards that takes one Persona from first run to an Offer’s activation Event. |
| Implementation | Noun | An Implementation is how an Interface, System, or Verb of a Product runs: managed by the platform, custom code on it, or external. |
| Incident | Noun | An Incident is an Issue where an Interface or Site fails Customers in production, tracked from detection to postmortem. |
| Interface | Noun | An Interface is how a person or an Agent reaches a Product: an API, MCP server, CLI, SDK, Site, or App. |
| Issue | Noun | An Issue is a Task reporting a problem or request, such as a bug or a feature request, with a reporter and a triage step. |
| Member Directory | Noun | A Member Directory is a Customer’s own list of people and groups, pushed into its Tenant so access follows employment. |
| Persona | Noun | A Persona is a named type of person with a job to do, such as a buyer, a seller, or an admin of an App. |
| Product Template | Noun | A Product Template is a reusable definition of one kind of Product: what it sells, who supplies the work, who buys, and how it earns. |
| Publication | Noun | A Publication is the branded package a Startup’s Customers use: Domain, Interfaces, packages, docs and Portal, compiled from its Brand and a Version. |
| Software | Noun | Software is a Product a Customer uses through Interfaces, from a headless API to a full App. |
| Source | Noun | A Source is something a Product draws on to keep its promise but did not build: owned, wrapped, or recruited. |
| SSO Connection | Noun | An SSO Connection links a Customer’s own identity system to its Tenant, so the Customer’s people sign in through it. |
| Standard | Noun | A Standard is a spec an Interface conforms to, so a Startup may publish its Product’s Verbs in a shape outside callers already use. |
| Agent.mint | Verb | Mint creates an Agent in a Customer’s Tenant from an Agent Product the Customer bought. |
| APIKey.issue | Verb | Issue creates an API Key for one Customer and returns its secret once; afterwards only the prefix shows. |
| APIKey.revoke | Verb | Revoke stops an API Key at once: its next call fails with 401, and the record and its history stay. |
| APIKey.roll | Verb | Roll issues a replacement API Key with the same scope and keeps the old one working until a set time. |
| App.publish | Verb | Publish releases an App to its Customers, so each Tenant runs its newest build. |
| Entitlement.check | Verb | Check says whether a Customer may call a Verb now, how much of its Limit remains, when that resets, and which Offer lifts it. |
| Noun.retire | Verb | Retire removes a published Noun from new Versions; its records, its history and every pinned Version keep serving. |
| Noun.trace | Verb | Trace lists every Verb, Process, Offer, Dashboard and Version that references a Noun, so an edit or a retire shows its reach first. |
| Offer.grant | Verb | Grant adds an Entitlement to an Offer: a Verb its Customers may call, optionally bounded by a Limit. |
| Offer.subscribe | Verb | Subscribe accepts a recurring Offer as a Subscription that renews each period until it ends. |
| Order.fulfill | Verb | Fulfill grants what an Order bought: Entitlements for software and data, a shipment for goods. |
| Problem.suggest | Verb | Suggest records a Customer’s ask for something the Product lacks as Evidence on a Problem, with the asker attached. |
| Tenant.provision | Verb | Provision creates a Customer’s Tenant in a Startup’s App, holding that Customer’s records apart from every other. |
| Verb.retire | Verb | Retire removes a published Verb from new Versions; callers pinned to earlier Versions keep calling it. |
| Version.deploy | Verb | Deploy points a Startup’s live address at a Version, so every Interface serves that build. |
| API | Interface | The API serves every Verb and record of a Product over HTTPS, one route per operation, described by OpenAPI and agents.json. |
| Chat app | Interface | A Chat app reaches a Product inside a chat workspace: its commands are the Product’s Verbs, and it ships through the workspace’s app directory. |
| CLI | Interface | The CLI runs every Verb from a shell, as a typed command per Verb or as do Noun.verb with JSON input. |
| MCP | Interface | The MCP server gives any agent four tools, search, fetch, try and do, that reach every Verb through typed programs. |
| SDK | Interface | The SDK is the typed client $ that calls every Verb as $.Noun.verb(input), in any Mode, scoped by $.with. |
| Webhooks | Interface | Webhooks deliver each Event a Watch selects to an HTTPS endpoint, signed with the Standard Webhooks headers and retried until acknowledged. |
Next steps
- Interfaces: one Verb on every Interface.
- Agents: sell an Agent, billed on its verdicts.
- Compatibility: change a Live API without breaking a caller.