House rules
Four rules, applied to every product, every page, every claim. A page that breaks one is a bug and is fixed as one.
- RULE 01
Dated proof or it doesn't exist
Every number carries its source and date. Anything we have not checked says so in writing, and is listed under “What we have not verified”.
- RULE 02
We publish our zeros
A zero is a test or a measurement that returned nothing. It stays on the page, printed above the buy button in amber, with its date. The mistakes we made while building are written up, dated, in the list of traps that comes with the product they concern.
- RULE 03
The files stay yours
Files delivered, code without third-party dependencies, hosting at $0 a month on a free plan (the domain is your bill). Twelve months of dated updates are the only recurrence. No subscription.
- RULE 04
We only sell what we own
We do not resell other people’s tools, sell what we lack the rights to, or build anything to fool AI detectors. Every archive ships with its LICENSE and NOTICE files.
How the rules are enforced
A build of this site fails if a page contains a forbidden phrase (“for everyone”, “no coding”, an unqualified “$0/month”, an earnings claim), a proof reference that does not point at a dated folder in our audit archive, or one of the things we decided on 2026-09-09 not to publish: a timestamp to the second, a latency, a file hash, the country of a buyer, or the name of a vendor from the price comparison we stopped publishing that day. The date on every number is a rule of writing, checked by reading, not by the script. The check runs in continuous integration before anything is deployed; the script is part of the Zero-Dependency Audit Scripts.
Where the proof comes from
Proofs come from sites we run: wiserstaff.com (an independent HR-software review blog, monetised by affiliation, live since 2026-06-27) and riin-art.com (an Astro shop). Naming them was a decision: a proof without a URL cannot be checked. ranthrice.com joined the ledger on 2026-09-07 with its first dated test.
What a test is
A test is a dated execution of the exact procedure a product describes, on a site we control, with the captures kept. Our older notes and page addresses call it a “run”. Three tests before sale is the bar; the product page shows which of the three exist and which do not. The three-test check “passed” means three tests; “partial” means the procedure ran but produced zeros or fewer than three dated executions, and the zeros are printed.
Prices
Each price is a single figure decided against one-time comparables read on the vendors’ own pages on a stated date. That reading is a dated internal document; the page prints one sentence naming the category of comparables and the date, because a sales page is not the place to send a reader to a competitor. A price becomes final the day the payment set-up is tested end to end, and does not move after the first sale without a note on the product page saying why.
Changelog
- v1.4 · 2026-09-28: v1.4, 2026-09-28: wording only, no rule changed. The rules and this page now use plain words: a test instead of a run, the three-test check instead of Gate 0, a list of traps instead of a trap register. Rule 03 was titled “You own everything, forever”, which said more than the licence gives; it now says the files stay yours. · v1.3, 2026-09-27: the enforcement paragraph said the build refuses the name of any third-party vendor. It refuses the names of the vendors in the price comparison we stopped publishing on 2026-09-09; the site names the tools and the payment provider it uses. · v1.2, 2026-09-09: rule 02 now says which zeros are published and which are sold. A run or a measurement that returned nothing stays on the page; a mistake we made while operating leaves the public ledger and lives in the trap register of the product it cost, dated. The competitor price bench became an internal dated document and each sheet keeps one sentence naming the category of comparables and the date they were read. The build check now refuses a timestamp to the second, a latency, a hash, a buyer's country and a third-party vendor name in published copy. · v1.1, 2026-09-07: after a six-voice challenge of the site's copy: the prices section now says what is true since 2026-09-07 (single figures decided against one-time comparables, not ranges); the enforcement paragraph lists only what the build check actually tests. · v1.0: first public version, carried over from design pilot v4.1 (2026-09-04) and the brand proposition of 2026-08-30.