ProofLedger

Every rival grades your startup idea with an LLM's guess. ProofLedger runs the real ad, takes the real pre-payment, and won't let you write product code until strangers actually paid.

Local-first. No server we operate — it runs on your machine and your own provider accounts (Stripe, ad platform, static host). A Claude Code plugin + CLI that gates coding on machine-verified real-world evidence, not opinion.

In 2026, agentic coding makes it faster than ever to build something nobody wants. ProofLedger is the brake: prove demand with real money first.

Why it's different

Most startup-validation tools produce an LLM's opinion about your market. Evidence-gate tools go further but trust self-reported proof ("I talked to 5 people"). ProofLedger counts only artifacts a machine re-fetches and verifies — and only real money opens the gate.

| Approach | What it proves | |---|---| | Critic / consultant bots | An LLM's guess | | Evidence gates (self-reported) | That you said you have proof | | Synthetic-user simulators | That fake users "agree" | | ProofLedger | That real strangers put a real card down |

The evidence ladder

| Tier | Test | Cost | Opens the gate? | |---|---|---|---| | 0 | Free public desk signal (deterministic, red-ocean penalty) | $0 | No — can only kill | | 1 | Fake-door landing + email | ~$0 | No | | 2 | Stripe pre-authorization (real money) | ad spend | Yes | | 3 | Captured sale | real | Yes (opt-in) |

A gating assumption goes alive only on verified evidence at tier ≥ 2. The build gate — a Claude Code PreToolUse hook — blocks writes to your product code until then.

Install

npm install -g proofledger        # CLI `proofledger`
# or install as a Claude Code plugin (build gate auto-registers)

Quickstart

proofledger init "why I'm building this"
proofledger hypothesis "diabetics will pre-pay \$15/mo for AI meal planning"

# Freeze a falsifiable bet — thresholds are hash-locked, no goalpost-moving.
proofledger register --metric preauth_conversion --sample 300 --pass 0.05 --kill 0.02

# Optional free Tier-0 screen first (kills obviously-dead ideas for $0):
proofledger connect stripe --secret sk_... --publishable pk_...
proofledger signal --assumption <demand-id> --keywords "diabetes,meal planning" --competitors "mynetdiary"

# Run the real experiment: landing page on YOUR host, ads on YOUR account,
# pre-auth on YOUR Stripe. Ads start PAUSED; nothing spends until you confirm.
proofledger experiment run --assumption <pay-id> --price 15 \
  --headline "Meal plans that count carbs for you" \
  --keywords "diabetes,meal planning" --daily 20 --days 5 --activate true

proofledger verify --experiment <id>   # re-fetch pre-auths, dedupe, void the holds
proofledger status                      # scoreboard + verdict; gate opens iff money verified

What you get

┌─ PROOF LEDGER ─────────────────────────────────────┐
│ VERDICT: SHARPEN                                    │
│ BUILD GATE: 🔓 OPEN — "will pay" is alive           │
│  ● demand ....... ALIVE                             │
│  ● will pay $15 . ALIVE   p̂=20.0% CI[15.9%,24.9%]  │
│ Evidence: 60 verified Stripe pre-auths (voided)     │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Integrity guarantees

• One function writes assumption status; one writes the gate. No LLM, ever.
• Registrations are hash-locked — editing a frozen bet trips a quarantine.
• Verified success is counted only from re-fetched artifacts; padding with the same card, wrong state, or wrong tag is filtered out.
• Pre-auths are voided after counting — a signal, not a charge (capture is opt-in).
• Secrets live in the OS keychain / a 0600 file — never in the repo.

Status

Early (0.1.x), building in public. Core ledger, gate, hash-lock, Tier-0 signal, Stripe verification, and the experiment saga are built and tested (54 unit tests). Network adapters are wired and smoke-tested live: Stripe (test mode) and Cloudflare (free Worker) pass against the real APIs; Meta ads are unit-tested and pending a live run. Not yet on npm — see docs/ and CLAUDE.md.

Docs

• docs/functional-spec.md
• docs/technical-spec.md
• docs/data-model.md
• docs/smoke-test.md — live Stripe/Cloudflare/Meta checks

License

Apache-2.0 © 2026 Nicola Alboré