01 · Current way
AI can only retrieve what one tool holds.
Every feature you bolt on reasons over a fraction of the company. The model never sees the whole record.
Custom AI operating systems · $2M–$10M companies
The system we use on every $25–$60K operating system build.
Map every workflow before you touch a tool. One write path per entity. Four agents, intake always first. Frontier models only for reasoning.
The internal Boom doc, given away as-is. Tools change weekly. The system is the asset.
From the Boom build, as written
87implementations (Luke’s count)
$25–$60Kper operating system build
$2M–$10Mthe company range in the paper
80%+token spend cut by routing
The problem
Seven tools, zero picture.
Sales lives in a CRM, projects in Monday, finance in spreadsheets. Seven tools means seven schemas with no shared keys: the same client exists as seven unrelated records, and every join between them is a human copy-pasting.
02 · Limitation
Every dashed line is a person moving data.
Typical stack in this range: 7–12 tools, 10–25 duplicate key-ins, 2–4 handoffs per workflow. None of it shares a foreign key.
03 · Cost of skipping
Automating a broken process costs 10× fixing it first.
Every rescue project Boom takes on skipped the map. Agents on a silo just make the mess faster.
The new way
One relational schema. AI at the workflow layer — not bolted on top.
Boom’s operating system is a consolidation method: six gated phases, one source of truth, then four agents that all read and write the same tables.
Every department reads and writes one database. Shared keys. Row-level permissions. Full-context retrieval.
Rule 01Map before you build anything.
Rule 02One write path per entity.
Rule 03Consolidate before you automate.
Rule 04AI reads the schema, never the silo.
Value proposition 01 · The foundation
Map every workflow before you touch a tool.
A workflow is anything that happens more than once a week. Instrument each one: trigger, steps, owner, handoff latency, and where the same data gets keyed twice. Timed manual hours become the ranking function for the entire build — they price the ROI before a dollar gets spent.
15–30workflows in a typical map
1 weekmapping window
Value proposition 02 · The foundation
Absorb, keep, kill — then lock one write path.
Every tool is sorted into three buckets. Absorb anything whose value is “our stuff is organized in here.” Keep true systems of record and sync them over API. Kill the rest the same week. Then every noun becomes a table, every relationship a foreign key, and every table gets exactly one write path. No code is written until every row reads locked.
7–12 → 1tools typically collapse to one system plus 2–3 keepers
Value proposition 03 · The intelligence
Four agents, in order. Intake always first.
Once the schema exists this phase moves fast, because every agent reads and writes the same tables. Intake feeds the database so everyone feels it immediately. Simple tasks go to cheap models. Frontier models are saved for reasoning. That routing split is how token spend drops 80%+.
A → DIntake, Generation, Answers, Triage
80%+token spend cut by task class
The build order
Six steps, two written gates.
The sequence is the whole game. Foundation closes before anything gets built, and a step exits only through a written gate. Consolidate one department at a time. Automate nothing yet.
01
Map
Triggers, owners, latency. Time the manual hours.
02
Audit
Absorb · keep · kill. Collapse the stack on paper.
03
Schema
Tables and foreign keys. One write path, in writing.
04
Consolidate
Backfill, parallel week, dated cutover. One department.
05
Agents
Intake first, then generation, answers, triage.
06
Automate
Event-driven, idempotent, logged. Pulled from the map.
Gate A · after schema
Every entity has exactly one write path, documented, before anything is built.
No code gets written until every row in the registry reads locked.
Gate B · after consolidate
A department is fully living in the system before the next one moves.
Backfill verified, parallel week passed, cutover dated. Then the next department.
Closing law
Models and tools swap out.
The map, the schema and the gates are the part you keep, which is why the operating system is the asset.
The giveaway
The full system paper. Three pages.
This is the internal doc Boom uses on every $25–$60K operating system build. Click a page to open it large. Source: Luke Pierce, 17 Aug 2026.
FAQ
If you’re about to skip a gate, read this.
Who is this method for?
Companies doing $2M–$10M a year. The paper is written for that range: 15–30 workflows, 7–12 tools, one department moving at a time.
Do you automate first?
No. Consolidate one department at a time. Automate nothing yet. Through the entire migration phase the old tool runs in parallel for one week, then a dated cutover, and the old tool goes read-only.
What happens to accounting, email, calendar?
Those stay. Keep covers true systems of record, synced over API — accounting remains the ledger of record, synced, never duplicated. If a tool’s main value is “our stuff is organized in here,” it gets absorbed.
Why does intake always go first?
Intake writes into the schema, so everyone feels the new system immediately. Generation, answers, and triage only work if they read and write the same tables. Every agent write is validated against the schema before it lands, and every write is logged.
How do you cut token spend 80%+?
Route extraction, parsing, classification, enrichment, validation, and routing to cheap models. Save frontier models for multi-step reasoning, drafting, synthesis, and judgment. A model at 1/20th the price clears most calls.
What does a Boom build cost?
The post names the internal doc as the one used on every $25–$60K operating system build. This page is the paper, not a checkout. Talk to Luke if you want the build done for you.
Next step
Steal the system. Or have Boom run it.
The full paper is above. If you want the $25–$60K build done on your company — map, schema, one department at a time, four agents in order — talk to Luke.
Luke Pierce
Dad to Matthew · CEO, Boom Automations · 87 implementations · Original post, 17 Aug 2026