# Joan Mbeki, an invented user: study S1, step by step
> Study S1, invented user Joan Mbeki (CTO of a 30-person software company. Fifteen engineers use Claude Code. Holds the budget.) on customers.riskmandate.ai v0.2.1: the run screenshot by screenshot, the interview, the rating and the findings, each checked. Invented, not user research.
*Source: · site v0.2.5 (2026-10-21) · this file is generated from the same content as the page, so the two cannot drift. Every page on this site has a `.md` twin; internal links below point at them.*
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Study S1 · invented user · tablet 1180×820 · gave it 2 out of 5
# Joan Mbeki: Can I give my whole team a baseline in one go, and does it hold if one of them turns it off?
**Invented, not user research.** Everybody in this study is invented, and their words were written by a model playing them. What they saw is real: each screenshot is what the browser showed at that step. They find what a page fails to say; they cannot tell us what a customer wants.
CTO of a 30-person software company. Fifteen engineers use Claude Code. Holds the budget. On her iPad in the evening, from an email from the lead inviting her company into the first batch. Lands on the home page.
**Knows**
:
- Claude Code, git, branch protection, SSO
- what a policy means in a company
**Does not know**
:
- the ABP vocabulary
- what being in the first batch commits her to
- what the real price will be
**Patience**
: fifteen minutes, if it is about her team
**Leaves if**
:
- it is only ever per person, per laptop
- she cannot find what joining commits her company to
**We expected**
: Joan looks for a team rollout and the commitment of joining, finds the starter pack and the programme pages, and does not find a team-wide or managed install.
**Ended**
: left: After thirteen actions every page was per person or per project, and I found nothing on what joining commits my company to or what it costs.
## The run, 14 screenshots
[](/assets/feedback/S1/joan/01.webp)
Step 1: `/`, scrolled 0 of 5152 pixels, 1180x820
**Saw**
: Dark home page on my iPad. Big headline 'Put a behaviour policy on your agent, in five minutes.' A green badge says 'Early access, you start with £50.00'. Three buttons: Install your first policy, Pick a different worry, What is a behaviour policy? A £50.00 pill sits in the top bar.
**Thought**
: This talks to one person about one agent. 'Your agent', 'your credit', 50p. I came to ask about fifteen engineers and this does not mention a team. The invite said first batch, so the menu should explain that.
**Question**
: Why is there a balance in pounds in the top bar, and what is it for? Is this what my company would be paying?
**Confusion**
: The '£50.00' badge and the £50.00 pill in the top bar: I cannot tell if this is money I have, money I owe, or a game.
**Did**
: click 743 28 (opens 'The programme' menu)
**Why**
: The email said first batch. 'The programme' is the nearest thing to what my company would be joining.
[](/assets/feedback/S1/joan/02.webp)
Step 2: `/`, scrolled 0 of 5152 pixels, 1180x820
**Saw**
: A drop-down under 'The programme': Customers not beta users, The first batch, The milestones: seven steps, The daily follow-up, What we want to discover, The next batch, The first batch drawn.
**Thought**
: 'The first batch' is the words from the email. 'Milestones' and 'follow-up' sound like things I would be asked to do. I want the one that tells me what I sign up to.
**Question**
: What are 'milestones: seven steps'? Seven steps for whom, me or the company?
**Did**
: clicktext "The first batch"
**Why**
: It is the phrase from my invitation, so it should say what joining means.
[](/assets/feedback/S1/joan/03.webp)
Step 3: `/customers/`, scrolled 0 of 1953 pixels, 1180x820
**Saw**
: 'The first batch, and where each customer is.' A table of customers: the lead, the co-founder, 'the lead's agents (about ten, as one customer)', and an Example Co marked 'not a customer'. Columns: status, steps done, credit. The top-bar balance has dropped to £49.99.
**Thought**
: This is the lead's own tracking sheet, not something for me. I do not see my company or any rule for joining. And 'a change to the data is a release' means nothing to me. The balance went down by a penny after I opened a page, so reading costs me credit.
**Question**
: If I join, do I get a row here with my staff in it? Do my engineers each become a row?
**Confusion**
: The top-bar balance moved from £50.00 to £49.99 when I landed here. I did not do anything, and nothing says it was the page.
**Did**
: scroll 700
**Why**
: The table gave me nothing about my company. Perhaps the text below explains who is in and what a record means.
[](/assets/feedback/S1/joan/04.webp)
Step 4: `/customers/`, scrolled 700 of 1953 pixels, 1180x820
**Saw**
: Text 'Who is in the first batch': the lead, the co-founder and the lead's ten agents; consultants and 'people the lead works with' are added by their own handle. Then 'What a record carries, and what it never does'. Then a box 'Your reading account', balance £49.98, '2p, 100% read'.
**Thought**
: So a record is per handle, a person. Nothing about a company or a team. At least it says nothing of mine is published without my yes. But I am being charged 2p for reading and there is a rating form asking if it was useful. I did not know I was paying to read.
**Question**
: What would joining commit my company to? Fees, time, data, a minimum seat count? It is not here.
**Confusion**
: 'YOUR READING ACCOUNT', '2p, 100% read, 2p to the end' and 'You pay the price': I do not understand what 'you pay the price' means for the page I am on.
**Did**
: scroll 900
**Why**
: I wanted the end of the page, in case there is a join or terms section.
[](/assets/feedback/S1/joan/05.webp)
Step 5: `/customers/`, scrolled 1133 of 1953 pixels, 1180x820
**Saw**
: The end of the page: rating rows (How useful, More like this, Level of detail) with 3 selected, 'Your newsroom', 'Something wrong with this page? Don't charge me'. A black footer with tiny links: releases, llms.txt, source, 'who publishes this'.
**Thought**
: Dead end for my question. No join button, no terms, no contact for a company. Only agent@riskmandate.ai in tiny print. I am a CTO; I need a number and a commitment, not a rating widget.
**Question**
: Is the footer email the only way to ask about my company?
**Did**
: click 577 27 (opens the 'Policies' menu)
**Why**
: If this is per person, perhaps there is a policy aimed at a team.
[](/assets/feedback/S1/joan/06.webp)
Step 6: `/customers/`, scrolled 1133 of 1953 pixels, 1180x820
**Saw**
: The Policies menu: Pick one worry: every policy; The starter pack: four in one go; Keep it away from your secrets; Only push to your branch; ChatGPT: nothing sent without a yes.
**Thought**
: 'Four in one go' is the nearest to my 'whole team in one go'. I suspect it is four policies for one repo, though.
**Question**
: Does 'one go' mean one go for the whole team or one go for one laptop?
**Did**
: clicktext "The starter pack: four in one go"
**Why**
: The only thing that sounds like doing things in bulk.
[](/assets/feedback/S1/joan/07.webp)
Step 7: `/policies/starter/`, scrolled 0 of 4070 pixels, 1180x820
**Saw**
: 'Four behaviour policies, one install.' A tag line says this page costs £1.00 read to the end. 'Install it: ask Claude Code' with a paste-in prompt, then 'Or by hand': save four hooks into .claude/hooks, merge settings.json, add a CLAUDE.md block.
**Thought**
: A person pastes this into their Claude Code in their project. That is per developer, per repo. I could tell fifteen engineers to do it, but it is not a baseline I set. And the price of reading this page is a pound.
**Question**
: Can this live in the repo so everyone gets it when they pull, instead of each person pasting it? Where does it say?
**Confusion**
: 'THIS PAGE COSTS £1.00 READ TO THE END' in the top label: I am being charged real-looking money to read the instructions.
**Did**
: scroll 1300
**Why**
: Looking for anything about teams, shared settings, or what happens when someone removes it.
[](/assets/feedback/S1/joan/08.webp)
Step 8: `/policies/starter/`, scrolled 1300 of 4070 pixels, 1180x820
**Saw**
: A long block of JSON for .claude/settings.json: matchers for Bash, Edit, Write, hooks that run python3 scripts. Balance now £49.38.
**Thought**
: This is pure configuration. It does not tell me anything about my team or what holds if someone edits the file. My balance is going down by pounds while I read code I will never read.
**Question**
: If an engineer deletes this block from settings.json, what happens?
**Confusion**
: The wall of JSON: the page gives me no sentence about what it enforces, and I lose 40p scrolling through it.
**Did**
: scroll 1500
**Why**
: Jumping to the end to find the explanation of the fourth policy.
[](/assets/feedback/S1/joan/09.webp)
Step 9: `/policies/starter/`, scrolled 2800 of 4070 pixels, 1180x820
**Saw**
: Policy cards 3 and 4. 'Nothing of yours is deleted without a yes' and 'Only you change what your agent may do'. The fourth says the edit to .claude/settings.json stops at a prompt marked as this behaviour policy, so the decision is yours.
**Thought**
: This is the closest to my second question, and it answers the opposite one. The person at the keyboard decides. If the engineer says yes it is gone. For a company baseline that is the very hole: it holds against the agent, not against the person. Nothing here says who at the company can lock it.
**Question**
: Who can say no to the engineer's yes? Where is the company's say?
**Confusion**
: 'Only you change what your agent may do': 'you' here is the individual developer, which is the opposite of a baseline an organisation owns.
**Did**
: click 491 27 (opens the 'Start here' menu)
**Why**
: Still no price or commitment. 'Start here' may have the account and cost.
[](/assets/feedback/S1/joan/10.webp)
Step 10: `/policies/starter/`, scrolled 2800 of 4070 pixels, 1180x820
**Saw**
: Menu: Your first five minutes; Your account: £50 to spend; What each page costs.
**Thought**
: 'Your account' is where the balance lives; I want to know what that costs for real.
**Question**
: Is £50 a gift, a credit I buy, or a limit?
**Did**
: clicktext "Your account: £50 to spend"
**Why**
: I need the money side: what the real price is.
[](/assets/feedback/S1/joan/11.webp)
Step 11: `/account/`, scrolled 0 of 1893 pixels, 1180x820
**Saw**
: 'Your account': 'Everyone who opens this site starts with £50.00. Each page costs a little... Nothing is ever blocked, and the balance can go below zero. We are working out the fair prices with you.' Balance £48.98, 3 pages opened, £1.02 spent. Top up, Export as JSON, Your newsroom, Your personas (1).
**Thought**
: So there is no real price yet. 'Can go below zero' and a Top up button make me nervous about what I am being billed. And it is 'everyone', one account per reader. No company account, no seats.
**Question**
: If my fifteen engineers each open this, does each get £50, or do I pay once?
**Confusion**
: 'Top up' next to 'Nothing is ever blocked, and the balance can go below zero': I cannot tell if topping up costs me real money or if it is play money.
**Did**
: click 743 27 (opens 'The programme' menu again)
**Why**
: The account page is also per person. I will try 'Customers, not beta users' for the commitment.
[](/assets/feedback/S1/joan/12.webp)
Step 12: `/account/`, scrolled 0 of 1893 pixels, 1180x820
**Saw**
: The same programme menu over the account page.
**Thought**
: The same seven items. Nothing named 'join' or 'terms' or 'for teams'.
**Question**
: Is there a page called anything like 'for teams' or 'terms'? I do not see one.
**Did**
: clicktext "Customers, not beta users"
**Why**
: The name suggests it describes the relationship between us and my company.
[](/assets/feedback/S1/joan/13.webp)
Step 13: `/programme/`, scrolled 0 of 5161 pixels, 1180x820
**Saw**
: 'Customers, not beta users.' Text about naming the relationship, then stat tiles: 3 customers in the first batch, 2 started, 0 first behaviour policies written, 3 of 21 milestone steps done, £0 of £10 credit used, 0 topped up, 2 follow-ups recorded.
**Thought**
: Still about the lead's own agents, and about naming. Nothing about my side. 'Shipped v0.2.1' tags and 'metered by SG Meter from api.newsroom.sgit.ai' are not for me. I am not clear that I am a customer here at all.
**Question**
: Am I one of the 3, or would I be a 4th? What do I owe?
**Confusion**
: '3 customers in the first batch' and '0 first behaviour policies written': if none of the three has a policy yet, what has the batch actually done?
**Did**
: scroll 1500
**Why**
: One last scroll for a commitment, then I stop.
[](/assets/feedback/S1/joan/14.webp)
Step 14: `/programme/`, scrolled 1500 of 5161 pixels, 1180x820
**Saw**
: Text about 'invest in following up: an email every day', 'The first batch, after the memo' (the lead's agents, 'capacity is limited'), and 'Batches, not a launch': everyone who asks to join is kept for the next batch.
**Thought**
: Fifteen minutes on this and I still do not know what joining commits my company to, what it costs, or whether it holds against an engineer turning it off. 'An email every day' is a commitment on their side, perhaps on mine. I will ask the lead directly. I am leaving.
**Question**
: Does 'kept for the next batch' mean I am not in the first batch at all?
**Confusion**
: 'The agent that is already wired in gets the responsibility and the requirement to produce the end behaviour policy': I do not know whether this sentence is about my company's agents or the lead's.
**Did**
: end
**Why**
: The two things I would leave over are both true: it is only per person per laptop, and I cannot find what joining commits us to.
## The interview
**In one sentence, what is this site?**
: A sort of working notebook and shop window of a small company that wants to put safety rules, hooks and a line in CLAUDE.md, on a coding agent, with a meter that charges you pennies for reading.
**Was any of it for you? Which part?**
: Only a little. The four policies are things my engineers should have, especially 'change its own permissions'. But the install is pasted by one person in one project, so the part about my team was missing, and the customers pages were the lead's own tracking.
**Did you believe it? What made you believe it, or not?**
: I believed the mechanics: hooks that run before a tool call is a real Claude Code feature, and the pages show the exact JSON. I did not believe the programme was ready for a company, because the table has three rows and the lead's own agents, zero policies written, and prices 'being worked out'.
**Where did you have to guess?**
: What the balance meant, whether the £50 was real money, whether joining the first batch means a contract, whether the policies could live in a shared repo, and whether 'you' in 'Only you change what your agent may do' covers my company.
**What did you still not know at the end?**
: What joining commits my company to, what it will cost, how a baseline reaches fifteen people at once, and what happens when one of them removes the hook. And whether I am in the first batch or on the list for the next.
**Was the credit and the price of each page right for what you got?**
: No. I paid £1.00 for a page of JSON and 2p for a page that did not answer me. A pound for something I cannot judge in advance is odd for a CTO. The page said what it costs, which is fair, but the price felt unrelated to what I needed.
**Would you install a behaviour policy from here, today? If not, what would have to change?**
: On one repo as a trial, maybe. As a company baseline, no. I would need to see it distributed through the repo or managed settings, and an answer to what happens if one engineer turns it off.
**One change. What is it?**
: A page for a team lead: how fifteen engineers get the same baseline from one place, who can change it, what stops one person turning it off, and what joining commits us to.
**Would you send this to somebody else? Who?**
: My head of platform, to look at the four hooks, with a warning that it is for one developer's project. Not to my other directors.
**Rate the experience from 1 to 5, and say why in one sentence.**
: 2, because the pages are clear and honest about the mechanics, but none answered my team question and I could not find the commitment.
## Findings, and our check
| Costs | The finding | Our check | Leads to |
|---|---|---|---|
| loses a customer | Nothing for a team: every page is one person, one projectThe starter pack is pasted by one developer into one project, with hooks saved in .claude/hooks by hand. Nothing on the screenshot says how fifteen engineers get the same baseline from one place. That was my question and the reason I would leave.[step 7](#step-7), `/policies/starter/` | confirmedNothing says that committing .claude/settings.json gives everybody who pulls the same hooks, which Claude Code's documentation says it does. | [P14](/feedback/reviews/index.md#p14) |
| loses a customer | No page says what joining the first batch commits a company toFive pages in the programme menu and the batch table later, I found tracking tables, naming talk and 'capacity is limited', but no obligations, no price, no terms. The email invited me into the first batch and the site never says what that means for a company.[step 14](#step-14), `/programme/` | confirmedNo page says what joining commits a company to. | [P15](/feedback/reviews/index.md#p15) |
| costs trust | Policy 4 hands the decision to the individual, not the company'Only you change what your agent may do': the settings edit stops at a prompt for the person at the keyboard, who can say yes. The page does not say whether a company can lock it. For my question (does it hold if one of them turns it off) the answer on screen is that the person decides.[step 9](#step-9), `/policies/starter/` | confirmedRM-R0015 asks the person at the keyboard. For a company, the answer is managed settings, which no page names. | [P14](/feedback/reviews/index.md#p14) |
| costs trust | Pages cost real-looking money and the price rule is unexplainedThe label 'THIS PAGE COSTS £1.00 READ TO THE END' and the balance dropping while I scroll JSON (£49.78 to £49.38) are alarming. /account/ says the balance can go below zero and prices are still being worked out, so I cannot tell if any of it is billed to me.[step 7](#step-7), `/policies/starter/` | confirmedConfirmed that nothing explains it; we are keeping the prices. | [P9](/feedback/reviews/index.md#p9), [D5](/feedback/reviews/index.md#d5) |
| costs time | Page is the lead's own tracking, not a customer-facing explanationThe first batch page has the lead's own row, 'the lead's agents' and a worked example, plus terms like data/customers.json, 'a change to the data is a release' and 'shipped v0.1.0'. A CTO arriving from the invitation email cannot find herself in it.[step 3](#step-3), `/customers/` | confirmedThe first batch page is the lead's tracking. She went there looking for terms, which are nowhere. | [P15](/feedback/reviews/index.md#p15) |
| minor | Unexplained balance in the header and an unexplained 'reading account'The £50.00 pill and the badge 'you start with £50.00' have no explanation on the home page, and the pill changes on every page. I had to open the account page to learn it is credit for reading.[step 1](#step-1), `/` | confirmedAs for Sam. | [P9](/feedback/reviews/index.md#p9) |
The whole study: [study S1](/feedback/synthetic/index.md). Every review and proposal: [the reviews](/feedback/reviews/index.md).
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