Capstone Final Template

Module 10, Lesson 10.5 · ten-section final document · produces /capstone/capstone-final.md

Save this as: /capstone/capstone-final.md. Freeze at end of Lesson 10.5.

Use it again: this is the document the reviewer reads before sign-off. It is also the one a stranger can pick up in a year and still understand. Ten sections, kept concise.

A stranger should read this in ~15 minutes and understand what the system does, how it is built, and how it is operated.

No broken links. No TODOs. No “ideas I had but didn’t ship” — that lives in the reflection.

Header

Student:

Frozen: Reviewer:

Estimated read time: 15 minutes

Section 1 — One-sentence purpose

Copy from charter §1 verbatim

Do not rewrite at the finish line. The point is to show that the system you shipped is the system you committed to. One sentence, present tense, copied word-for-word from /capstone/capstone-charter.md §1.

Section 2 — What it does (two paragraphs)

Paragraph 1 — the workflow from your point of view

“Every morning at 7am, X happens, which produces Y, which I review in Z.” Concrete times, concrete inputs, concrete outputs. A stranger should be able to mentally run the system after this paragraph.

Paragraph 2 — what you gain from it

Name the specific thing in your life that got better because this exists — not in the abstract, in the concrete. Not “I read more” but “Monday mornings I know what to read first without scrolling past forty open tabs.”

Section 3 — Architecture in one page

Diagram plus three component bullets plus a link

Copy the system diagram from Architecture §2. Below it, a terse list of the three components — one bullet per component, under twenty words each. Do not rewrite Architecture §1 in full here; link to it.

Diagram area (paste diagram or reference system-diagram.png):

Paste the system diagram here, or write: “See /capstone/system-diagram.png.” Same diagram as Architecture §2. Do not redraw.

Components:

Component 1 (name — shape — one-sentence job):

Component 2 (name — shape — one-sentence job):

Component 3 (name — shape — one-sentence job):

Full architecture:

Expected: /capstone/capstone-architecture.md

Section 4 — How it’s operated

Three paragraphs — the operating facts a reviewer needs without reading Architecture §§3–6

Shared state

One paragraph — where it lives, what rotates, who has access. Path, not vague description.

Kill switch

One paragraph — name the command, the target halt time, and how often you’ve tested it. Not “there is a kill switch.” Name it.

Cost, measured

One paragraph — your monthly budget, your projected monthly spend from the seven-day window, and the margin between them. Numbers, not “reasonable.”

Section 5 — Security and privacy posture

Point at the posture document; name capstone-specific amendments

Short section. Point at /capstone/security-posture.md rather than restating it, then list any amendments Module 10 introduced (or write “No amendments were needed.”).

Posture doc last dated:

Amendment 1 (or write “none”):

Amendment 2 (or leave blank):

Highest data class this system touches:

☐ public ☐ personal ☐ sensitive

Routing rule (one line; follows Architecture §1):

Section 6 — What I operated, and what broke

Honest one-paragraph summary of the seven-day window

Cite the observation log; do not repeat it. How many runs, what broke and how you fixed it, one thing that surprised you about running it in real life.

Full log:

Expected: /capstone/observation-log.md

Incident drill after-action:

Expected: /capstone/incident-drill-afteraction.md

Section 7 — What this system does NOT do

Three to five bullets; copy from charter §5 and add post-build narrowings

Protects the reviewer from misreading the scope and protects you from scope creep after sign-off. If you narrowed during the build, the narrowed version lives here.

Section 8 — How to run it (the 60-second version)

Six to ten lines of shell or click-through instructions — not a novel

For a future you, or a reviewer who wants to prove to themselves that it works. The example below is illustrative; fill in your own commands on the blank lines.

# Example (for reference — replace with yours)
cd ~/capstone/pipeline-v1
./smoke-test.sh                  # confirms each component runs in isolation
./run-once.sh                    # one end-to-end run through shared state
./kill.sh                        # full halt, all components, < X seconds

Your six to ten lines:

Section 9 — Where everything lives

One line per artifact; tick the box once you have confirmed the file exists

If you need more than twelve entries, the system is bigger than a capstone. The paths below are the expected defaults; write your actual paths on the line if they differ.

☐ Charter → /capstone/capstone-charter.md

☐ Architecture → /capstone/capstone-architecture.md

☐ Diagram → /capstone/system-diagram.png

☐ Pipeline → /capstone/pipeline-v1/

☐ Shared state → /capstone/pipeline-v1/shared-state/

☐ Observation log → /capstone/observation-log.md

☐ Incident drill → /capstone/incident-drill-afteraction.md

☐ Demo video → /capstone/demo.mp4

☐ Reflection → /capstone/capstone-reflection.md

☐ Sign-off → /capstone/named-human-signoff.md

☐ Posture (root) → /capstone/security-posture.md

Section 10 — Freeze

By freezing this document on the date at the top, I commit that:

The charter has not been silently amended since sign-off.
The system operates under the posture referenced in Section 5.
The artifacts linked in Section 9 exist and are the current versions.
Any future changes to this system will be made in a v2 folder, not by editing v1 artifacts.

Signed:

Date:

This template accompanies Lesson 10.5 of AI Architect Academy. The ten-section spine, the conciseness target, and the freeze commitments are concept. Specific file paths, component names, and run commands are recipe.