An agent in the loop, a person at the wheel.

1. 01 · DirectionI write the brief as a sentence and a bar: what it is, what it must feel like, what's out of bounds. Facts live in locked files with the rules at the top.
2. 02 · ReadThe agent reads the repo, the content, the git history, and any reference I point it at before touching anything.
3. 03 · BuildIt proposes, I cut, it builds. Whole directions get built end to end in a day so they can be judged by looking at them, not by arguing.
4. 04 · VerifyNothing is done until it's been looked at in a browser at three sizes with a clean console. A green type-check proves nothing about a room that looks wrong.
5. 05 · CommitLarge, thematic, build-green commits with messages that say why. Attribution stays on the agent's work.
6. 06 · Hand offA handoff document keeps the conventions and the traps so the next agent, or the next me, starts warm.

You're picking up **Whitehead City**: a personal portfolio site for Josh
Whitehead that is *also* a playable open-world game. This file is the
handoff. Read it fully — the codebase has hard-won conventions and a few
traps that will waste your time if you don't know them.

---

## 1. What this project actually is

Two things wearing one URL:

1. **A real portfolio.** The landing view is a desk with a monitor
   showing the actual josh.design site (routes under `/work`,
   `/products`, `/contact`, etc.). This content is real and load-bearing.
2. **A game.** Press ESC / "stand up" and the camera lifts out of the
   monitor into a first-person walk through Josh's **house**, out the
   front door into **Whitehead City**, where you drive, shoot at a rifle
   range, and play **10 story missions** tracing his life 1993 → now.

The desk → house → city → missions → credits loop is fully connected and
playable. It is **not** finished — see §8.

### The creative north star (do not drift from this)
- **Look & feel:** Half-Life 1 / GoldSrc-era aesthetic. Low-poly, low-res
  hand-painted-look textures, flat diffuse lighting. HL2 is the stretch.
- **Feature set & world quality:** **GTA (Vice City / San Andreas era) is
  the benchmark.** When you build a system — traffic, missions,
  wayfinding, interiors, pause menu — the working question is literally
  *"how did Rockstar do this in GTA, and how do I build my own version?"*
- **Movement feel:** Quake/GoldSrc — snappy accelerate/friction, air

• 0MXXfQ35nAemFdlfC6KNhXGz5U.pngspin · quality 5MacBook suspended by orange cords displaying a Spin 'Next-Generation Vehicle' webpage with an orange e-scooter on a white page.
• 6IzURTjnnuYKPcnxrm2ZhIfajKQ.pngspin · quality 5Side-view product shot of an orange-and-black Spin e-scooter with a wide rear fender on a grainy orange background.
• 85TV5oMn3SAOrAoRYC5xnTzPE.jpgmarines · quality 5Line of Marines in flight helmets and packs walking down a hazy flightline toward a CH-53 helicopter.
• P8tPvWYdRcsYtaIgXsI1bOhvcd4.pngspin · quality 5Side-view product shot of an orange-and-black Spin e-scooter with a handlebar phone mount on a grainy orange background.

35

commits between July 6 and July 22, 2026, building the city

8

directions built end to end in that window; 3 shipped to the Builds page

10,217

lines across the four 3D and canvas experiments

16

days from first commit to a playable, mission-complete city

3

whole site directions built and replaced on October 14, 2026

0

ripped assets. Original or CC0 only, by rule