Sample verdict: a Shopify plugin reconciliation tool

From "should I build it?" to "what next" — how Socratic Gate reviews an idea with evidence.

1 · The question

An indie developer building Shopify plugins wants to make a lightweight reconciliation tool: every custom request means manual CSV exports and line-by-line checks past midnight. The question: is this idea worth the first line of code?

2 · Four-field intake (the gate)

Who = an indie developer building Shopify plugins; When = reconciling books past midnight after every custom request; Paying today = Excel + manual screenshots; Missing = no lightweight reconciliation tool.

After submission, the four fields and one-liner are re-checked server-side — too long, too broad, parallel features, or no audience gets bounced back for a rewrite.

3 · Evidence cards (the evidence ledger)

Verdicts accept only verbatim quotes + sources; paraphrases don’t count. This sample fabricates nothing — the card has no payment records or user quotes to show, so all four evidence types are honestly marked:

You can pass the gate with empty evidence cards — but the hard rule takes over: zero external evidence → "need more evidence" at best (no source, no green light).

4 · The rule pass (ten dimensions)

A deterministic rules engine evaluates dimension by dimension. This sample shows dimensions and status only, no scores — scores appear only in your real report:

• User specificity: pass — "an indie developer building Shopify plugins" is a findable group of people.
• Scene clarity: pass — timing and scenario are explicit (after every custom request).
• Pain & payment: insufficient — pain described, zero payment-behavior evidence.
• Evidence strength: insufficient — empty evidence cards, zero external evidence.
• Supply gap: unclear — doesn’t say why current reconciliation falls short, or which part you’d take.
• Demand repeatability: likely — reconciliation recurs with every order (pending evidence).
• 48h feasibility: feasible — a landing page + interview posts is a minimal loop.
• Traffic path: not given — target seller communities unspecified.
• Compliance risk: no hits (a regular SaaS tool).
• Product-shape fit: pass — a Shopify plugin works inside the seller dashboard, the closest entry to the user.

Hard rule takes over: "zero external evidence → need more evidence at best (no source, no green light)". The rules don’t care about attitude, only evidence — being smart doesn’t move this step.

5 · Verdict and next steps

Follows from one fact — insufficient evidence strength: don’t write code now, and no green light — collect payment evidence and user quotes first. This sample shows only this one inference; a real report also includes the full verdict rationale and opportunity status transition.

The task content is an example showing the action format suggested after a "need more evidence" verdict; your real task is decided by your evidence gap.