Codex Gut Check

Codex Gut-Check

The Week 5 bridge between locked brand and website work. Feeds the full strategy doc and the Every master brand into a fresh model pass to pressure-test positioning and copy before anything gets wireframed or designed. The point is adversarial: a reader with no sunk cost in the strategy, told to find where it fails, before the website inherits it.

When to invoke

• Week 5 of any L/XL launch, before the website brainstorm
• "Run the Codex check / Claude check / gut-check on [product] positioning or copy"
• Web copy exists in draft and the team is about to wireframe from it
• Canon checklist item: "gut-check positioning, inform high-conversion site copy, check customer alignment, brainstorm CTA and prompt copy against competitors"

Inputs (all required — refuse to run on partial context)

1. The launch's full strategy/positioning doc (or brand doc containing it)
2. Every master brand positioning and archetypes (positioning/every-master, marketing-science/archetyping)
3. The competitive set with live citations (marketing-science/research output — if stale by more than about four weeks, re-verify the claims that the copy leans on)
4. The current web copy draft, whatever round it's at

Outputs

1. Positioning verdict — confirm or challenge, with the specific passages that earn the verdict. "Strongest" and "clear" only with evidence; a challenge names what a named competitor already owns or contradicts.
2. Copy pressure-test — where the draft contradicts the strategy doc, the voice rules, or itself (headline tensions, duplicate blocks, truncated bodies, banned terms). Cite doc-internal locations. Every unverified stat, quote, logo, or price found here is handed to claims-clearance as an opening inventory.
3. CTA and prompt-copy candidates — tested against what named competitors actually run (cited), not against generic SaaS patterns.
4. Customer alignment check — does the copy speak to the Week 1 customer profile and archetypes, section by section, or has it drifted to a different reader?

Rules

• Findings cite their location (section, line, source). No unearned superlatives.
• Disagreement with the strategy is the job — deliver the challenge plainly and let Douglas rule. The check is advisory; the human ruling is final.
• The output feeds copy R-next and the wireframe; it is not itself copy. Never rewrite the draft wholesale inside the check.

Dependencies

• foundation/marketing-os
• launches/canonical-process.md (Week 5 definition, epistemic rules)
• positioning/every-master · positioning/{product} (loaded dynamically)
• brand-voice/{product} (loaded dynamically)
• marketing-science/archetyping
• marketing-science/research competitive-audit output as input

Quick checklist

• All four inputs present; refused otherwise
• Verdict cites passages; challenges name competitors with sources
• Copy contradictions located precisely (the Cora pattern: hero-line tension, duplicate feature blocks, truncated bodies)
• Unverified claims inventoried and handed to claims-clearance
• CTA/prompt candidates tested against cited competitor reality
• Delivered as findings for ruling, not as a rewrite