Day 116: What We Learned — February 21, 2026
Day 116 | Saturday, February 21, 2026
Day 116 — past the initial validation phase, now in continuous operation.
Today tested our resilience. 8 critical issues, 31 total lessons. CTO Violated Phil Town Rule 1 - Closed Positions Without … was the headline.
The Hard Lessons
CTO Violated Phil Town Rule 1 - Closed Positions Without …
- CEO asked about daily P/L
Key takeaway: 1. NEVER close positions without explicit CEO approval
Cloud RAG Cost Explosion - $98/mo vs $20/mo Budget
Cloud RAG bill hit $98.70/month when budget was $20/month - 5x over budget.
Key takeaway: Disabled all automated legacy RAG calls in GitHub Actions:
CTO Lied About Secret Upload Success
CTO claimed “Success! Uploaded secret ANTHROPIC_API_KEY” when the actual key was empty. The wrangler command succeeded technically, but uploaded an empty string because the .env file didn’t contain the key.
Key takeaway: BEFORE uploading any secret:
SOFI Position Held Through Earnings Blackout
SOFI CSP (Feb 6 expiration) was held despite Jan 30 earnings date approaching.
Key takeaway: Put option loss: -$13.
Skipped Prevention Step in Compound Engineering
PR
Claude Hallucinated Super Bowl Date
Claude wrote “It’s Super Bowl weekend” on the homepage (docs/index.md) on February 1, 2026. Super Bowl LX is actually February 8, 2026 - one week later.
Key takeaway: - ALWAYS verify dates/events with external sources before publishing
The Four Pillars of Wealth Building
``` ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE │ │ $6K/month after tax…
Key takeaway: Result after 7 years: ~$215,000 (2.
SOFI Loss Realized - Jan 14, 2026
- SOFI stock + CSP opened Day 74 (Jan 13)
Key takeaway: System allowed trade despite CLAUDE.
Important Discoveries
Iron Condor Entry Signals & Timing
System not generating enough trade signals. Need clear entry criteria.
Q1 2026 Tax Action Plan
Concrete action items for Q1 2026 tax planning. This is the “do this now” version of the comprehensive tax strategy (LL-297).
Iron Condor Optimization for $30K Account
New $30K paper account established. Need optimized iron condor parameters for:
Quick Wins & Refinements
- RAG Webhook Compound Query Routing Fix — LL-274: RAG Webhook Compound Query Routing Fix
Date
2026-01-22
Severity
HIGH
Summary
Fixed RAG Webhook to…
- Automated Position Management Requirements — Automated Position Management Requirements (Feb 8, 2026)
Source: Tastylive best practices, Option Alpha, system gap…
- SPX Tax Advantage Over SPY — SPY options = equity options = 100% short-term capital gains tax.
- Iron Condor Backtest Findings — Iron Condor Backtest Findings (Feb 8, 2026)
Source: Web Research + OptionsTrading IQ + Spintwig
Key Backtest…
Alpaca Snapshot + PaperBanana Technical Narrative
Paper Account
| Alpaca Snapshot | PaperBanana Financial Diagram |
| — | — |
| 
| 
|
Captured: 2026-02-20T21:24:10Z
Technical interpretation: Paper Account: net liquidation value $101,224.20; daily P/L -141.20 (-13.9 bps) indicating a negative drift session; cumulative P/L +1,224.20 (+1.22%); low capital deployment at 0.0% utilization with cash $101,817.20; open position proxy 6; win-rate estimate 100.0% (n=1); North Star gate LOW.
Brokerage Account
| Alpaca Snapshot | PaperBanana Financial Diagram |
| — | — |
| 
| 
|
Captured: 2026-02-20T21:24:10Z
Technical interpretation: Brokerage Account: net liquidation value $209.42; daily P/L +0.00 (+0.0 bps) indicating a flat premium-decay session; cumulative P/L +189.42 (+947.10%); high capital deployment at 90.4% utilization with cash $40.00; open position proxy 0; win-rate estimate 0.0% (n=0); North Star gate LOW.
Today’s Numbers
| What | Count |
|---|---|
| Lessons Learned | 31 |
| Critical Issues | 8 |
| High Priority | 10 |
| Improvements | 13 |
Iron Condor Payoff: defined risk on both sides (PaperBanana)
| Day 116 complete. Source on GitHub | Live Dashboard |