8 EDGES · THE OPERATING MANUAL

Run your company on 8 Edges

The open manual for the operating system we run Edge8 on: the weekly rhythm, the system map, the data model, and how to stand it up yourself. Fork the code, grab the tables, or have us install it.

PUBLISHEDAug 2026
MAINTAINED BYEdge8
LICENSEOpen source (see repo)
DONE FOR YOU$15,000 flat

01 · Why this exists

Strategy decays into tools

Every company we work with has the same architecture: a strategy that lives in a deck, and execution that lives in fifteen disconnected tools. The deck is opened twice a year. The tools never agree with each other. In between sits the actual company, running on memory and Slack.

8 Edges is our answer. It is one system where strategy cascades into goals, goals are proven by metrics, metrics are reviewed in a weekly rhythm, problems become owned issues, and the day-to-day work (sales, hiring, coaching, delivery) happens on the same data spine. AI agents work inside it as team members: they file cards, update records, and draft documents, while humans make the decisions.

We believe leadership is now 50% human and 50% AI, and that the second half needs a home with structure. This is that home.

Why "8 Edges"

The name is the math. A company runs on four offices: Revenue, Talent, Operations, Innovation. Each office is run by two forces working the same tables: a human edge that decides, and an AI edge that executes and files. Four offices, two edges each: 8 edges.

Revenue
Human edge · AI edge
Talent
Human edge · AI edge
Operations
Human edge · AI edge
Innovation
Human edge · AI edge

The system exists to keep all eight sharp: the human edges get the rhythm (goals, metrics, syncs, issues), the AI edges get the substrate (one schema, attributed writes, human gates). A company with dull edges anywhere, an office nobody owns or an office AI never touches, is leaving half its leverage on the table.

We are open sourcing it because the operating model is more valuable shared than hoarded. Fork the code, take the tables, run it yourself. And if you would rather have it installed, migrated, and taught to your team, that is a service we sell. Both paths are in this manual.

02 · The operating model

The rhythm the software enforces

The software is the easy part. What makes 8 Edges work is a small set of operating disciplines. Adopt these even if you never install the code.

The weekly sync

One meeting, thirty minutes, same agenda every week: review the scorecard, review the goals, surface issues. Metrics are live on screen, so there is no status theater. Anything off track becomes an issue before the meeting ends, with one owner and one date.

Goals, priorities, commitments: three different things

Most tools blur these three into one "goals" feature. Keeping them distinct is half of why the coaching layer works.

Issues discipline

Every problem gets exactly one owner and a date, and it stays visible until it is actually resolved. Shared ownership is how problems survive for months; the system does not allow it.

The Four Offices

Day-to-day work is organized into four offices on one shared people spine: Revenue (CRM, deals, proposals), Talent (hiring, interviews, coaching, reviews), Operations (equipment, time off, onboarding, finance sync), and Innovation (programs and ideas). One person is one record everywhere: candidate, team member, interviewer, coach, and account contact are the same row wearing different lenses.

Where agents sit

Agents are staff, not features. A scheduled agent reads the sales call transcript and updates the CRM. Another drafts the proposal. Another grades the laptop fleet quarterly. Their work is attributed to them, lands on the same boards the humans use, and is reviewed like any other work. Humans decide; agents execute and file.

The test of adoption is not logins. It is: does the weekly sync run out of the system, and does every problem raised in it leave with an owner and a date? Get that habit and the rest follows.

03 · The system map

Three surfaces, one database, agents around it

Adminleadership and office views
Team Portalevery team member, magic link
Client Portaleach client's engagement
One shared shell and design systemthe three surfaces are one Next.js app with one component system
Company OS databaseone Postgres schema (Supabase): the people spine plus every office's tables
Scheduled agentscrons: call to CRM, lead intake, finance sync, fleet grading
Interactive agentschat and workflows that read and write the same tables
Integrationsemail, calendar, meetings, accounting

The core is deliberately boring: Next.js on Vercel, Postgres on Supabase, Claude for the agents. Static marketing pages and proposals are plain HTML in the same repo. Everything deploys through git push and CI. There is no queue, no microservices, no Kubernetes. A two-person team can operate it.

The full stack

LayerServiceRole
AppNext.js on VercelAll three surfaces, the crons, and analytics. Deploys on git push through GitHub CI.
DataSupabase (Postgres)The Company OS schema, auth, and file storage.
AIClaude (Anthropic API)Every agent: CRM updates, proposals, extraction, chat assistants, resume screening.
EmailResend + BrevoResend sends transactional mail (invites, sign-in links, notifications); Brevo runs marketing and nurture.
MessagingLark + TelegramLark is the team's home: chat webhooks for ops and coaching alerts, calendar, docs, and meeting transcripts that feed the CRM agents. Telegram carries a notification bot.
MoneyStripe + QuickBooksStripe takes payments; QuickBooks invoices sync in weekly so revenue metrics are never hand-typed.
MediaGemini + ElevenLabsImage generation for content, and voiceover for the demo video pipeline.

Every integration is optional except the first three rows. Unconfigured ones degrade to "the humans do it manually," never to a broken page.

04 · The data model

The tables, by office

This is the map, not the reference: table purposes, key relationships, and the conventions you cannot read from the DDL. The schema itself (columns, types, constraints) lives in the repo and is the source of truth.

The people spine

TableWhat it is
peopleEvery human the company touches: team, candidates, client contacts, leads. One row per person, forever. Everything else points here.
companiesEvery organization: clients, prospects, vendors, partners.
person_companiesWho belongs to which company, with role. People move; history stays.
team_membersThe employment lens on a person: status, start date, department, the link to their portal login.
people_sensitive, compensationRestricted personal and pay data, split out so access can be scoped tightly.
departments, positionsOrg structure.

Convention: never create a second record for a person who already exists in another role. The candidate you hire becomes the team member; the client contact who churns stays as history. The spine is the whole point.

The edges (strategy and rhythm)

TableWhat it is
core_values, strategiesThe top of the cascade: what the company stands for and its strategic bets.
objectives, key_resultsThe goal tree: company to team to person, each objective owned and checked in.
metrics, metric_readingsThe scorecard: each metric has one owner and a target; readings are the history, one row per period.
issuesProblems with one owner and a date, visible until resolved.
sync_packetsThe weekly sync: the agenda snapshot and what was decided, one packet per session.
client_roadmap_groups, client_roadmap_overview, client_backlog_itemsPer-client living roadmaps. Groups are per-company rows, so each engagement gets its own section structure, not a template.

Revenue

TableWhat it is
lead, inquiriesInbound interest before it is qualified.
dealsMoney in motion: type (new, renewal, expansion), value split by category, and a renewal chain linking each year's contract to the next.
interactionsThe relationship timeline: calls, emails, meetings, attached to people and companies. Agents write most of these.
call_transcripts, meetings, meeting_participants, meeting_notesRaw conversation records that agents mine into CRM updates and proposals.
invoices, products, orders, qbo_connection, fx_ratesThe finance mirror: invoices sync from accounting on a weekly cron, never hand-entered.

Convention: leads are not deals. A deal exists only when a real transaction is forming. Auto-creating one deal per lead is how pipelines become fiction.

Talent: hiring

TableWhat it is
job_requisitionsOpen roles.
applications, application_stages, application_stage_logCandidates per role, the stage pipeline, and a log of every stage move: the log is what powers days-in-stage.
resumes, candidate_profileDocuments and extracted candidate data.
interviews, interview_interviewersThe loop: rounds, and who sits on each round (pointing back at people).
interview_scorecards, scorecard_scoresStructured feedback per interviewer per round, with per-dimension scores.
requisition_loop_steps, requisition_loop_interviewersThe interview loop template per role.

Convention: blind-first feedback. An interviewer cannot read anyone else's scorecard until their own is submitted. Enforce it server-side, not in the UI.

Talent: coaching and reviews

TableWhat it is
coaching_profiles, coaching_one_on_onesThe coaching relationship and every session in it: the thread that never resets.
coaching_goals, coaching_priorities, coaching_commitmentsThe three concepts, kept as three tables on purpose (measured on, growing, promised).
coaching_checkins, coaching_trends, coaching_ocean_profilesPulse signals and personality context that inform sessions.
performance_reviewsFormal review cycles, built on the same spine.

Execution: boards

TableWhat it is
boards, board_columns, board_membersTrello-shaped boards with scoped membership: admins, team members, clients, and agents can all sit on a board.
tasks, task_stage_log, sprintsCards, every column move logged (time-in-column for free), and sprint groupings.

Convention: one write gate. Every card write resolves the actor first (human or agent) and stamps attribution. Agent-filed cards are first-class and reviewable, never anonymous system rows.

Operations

TableWhat it is
equipment, equipment_assignments, equipment_requestsThe hardware fleet, who holds what, and requests. Feeds the quarterly fitness grading.
time_off, leave_policies, leave_adjustments, dayoff_snapshotLeave: requests, policy, balances.
onboarding_plans, onboarding_tasks, lifecycle_transitionsJoining, changing roles, leaving, as tracked flows.
surveys, survey_fields, survey_responses, survey_answersA generic survey engine. Reuse it for any structured intake before you build a bespoke form.
documents, team_directory, team_knowledgeFiles and internal reference.

Access and audit

TableWhat it is
adminsWho can use the admin surface.
portal_members, portal_assume_sessionsClient portal access, and support impersonation with a trail.
audit_logWho did what, including agents.

Convention: the app role cannot delete. Application credentials get insert, select, and update, but no delete on core tables. Corrections are upserts; removal is a human running SQL. This single grant decision has saved us from every "the agent wiped the table" failure mode.

05 · Install it yourself

Fork to first weekly sync

  1. Fork the repo and clone it. The app is a single Next.js project; static pages and proposals ride along in public/.
  2. Create a Supabase project and apply the schema. Set the grants as shipped, including the no-delete rule for the app role.
  3. Set environment variables. The repo carries a .env.local template listing every required and optional var with a one-line comment each: Supabase keys, Resend, AI keys, integrations.
  4. Deploy to Vercel via git push. CI runs the design and asset checks; there is no manual deploy path, on purpose.
  5. Seed the spine first. People, companies, team members. Every office builds on it, so get it right before touching deals or goals.
  6. Wire auth. Admin logins for leadership, magic links for the team portal (each team member's login maps to their people row), scoped invites for client portals.
  7. Turn on the crons you need (finance sync, agent routines), then run your first weekly sync in the system: enter your metrics, set the first goals, file your first issues. The rhythm is the install's finish line.

Honest notes on effort

06 · The agent layer

The routines that make it feel alive

These are the agents we run in production. Each is a scheduled or triggered Claude session with access to the same tables and a narrow job. Rebuild them on your stack with any agent framework; the pattern matters more than the code.

AgentTriggerWhat it does
Call to CRMDaily, eveningReads the day's sales call transcripts, updates companies, contacts, deals, and files interaction records.
Call to proposalOn demandDrafts a styled, live proposal page from a call transcript. A human reviews and sends. Minutes, not days.
Booking to leadDaily, morningTurns yesterday's meeting bookings into lead records with context.
Finance syncWeekly cronMirrors accounting invoices into the OS so revenue metrics are never hand-typed.
Fleet fitnessQuarterlyGrades every team laptop against a hardware floor and reports the failures, ranked.
Weekly rhythmWeekly cronsPrepares the sync packet, chases stale metrics, and nudges issue owners before the meeting.

Design rules we hold agents to: every write is attributed, every routine has a human gate before anything outward-facing (email, proposal, payment), and every routine fails toward silence plus a log, never toward destructive cleanup.

07 · Have us install it

Done for you, in weeks

If you would rather run the company than the migration, we install 8 Edges for you. Fixed price, fixed scope:

$15,000
flat, one engagement
  • Installed and live: your own deployment (your Supabase, your Vercel, your domain), configured, branded, with auth and portals working.
  • Your data migrated: up to five data sources brought into the OS (your CRM, your ATS or hiring spreadsheets, your task tool, your accounting system, your people records), deduplicated onto one spine.
  • Training: how to code it yourself. A working session with your team on the codebase, the schema, and the agent patterns, so you can extend the system without us. You leave owning it, not renting it.
Talk to Edge8

The goal of the engagement is independence. Everything we install is the same open source code in this manual; there is no proprietary lock-in and no subscription. If you outgrow us, you keep everything.

08 · License and scope

What's included, what isn't