Intake forms
A Service's intake is the form a buyer fills before work starts: each field typed, measured and required, asked once, and checked against the brief.
Intake is what a buyer sends before work starts, declared once in the Service's intake key. The same fields become the order form in the Portal, the inputs a buyer's agent sends over MCP, and the check Order.start runs.
The fields
| Field | Holds | Catalogmend's audit |
|---|---|---|
name | The field's name, in camelCase | storeUrl, listings, styleGuide, sizeChart |
type | What the buyer sends | A URL, a count, a file |
measure | How the Service sizes the job from it, in one sentence | "Listings in the catalog" |
required | Whether work can start without it | sizeChart is required for apparel stores |
A field with a measure sizes the job, so it sets the price on a Quote and the ceiling of what the Order buys.
One form, three readers
The buyer sees a form in the Portal. A buyer's agent reads the same fields as the inputs of the order operation, with their types. The Startup's agents read them as the brief on the Order.
Nothing is asked twice: a field the buyer answered on its Quote request carries onto the Order with the brief.
Missing and beyond
A missing required field becomes one Question to the buyer, and the Order stays in intake with the clock stopped. Work beyond the brief, such as 9,500 listings on a brief of 8,200, goes on a new Quote on the same Deal. Quotes and intake has the whole flow.
Testing the form
Experiments may test intake questions: their wording, their order, what is asked up front. They never change what the contract promises for a given brief.