> deploy production ✓ build passed ✓ tests green ✓ deployed
HOLLOW
BUTTONS
The Illusion of Functionality in AI-Built Software
That checkmark is lying to you. AI gives you the button — the visible, clickable, demo-able 20%. It almost never gives you the feature: the audit trail, the undo, the permissions, the failure handling. This book is about the 80% under the waterline — and how to build it before it costs you the business.
The Hollow Test
Four questions that separate real features from beautiful liabilities. If the answer is no four times, you're looking at a hollow button.
Can I audit it?
Is there a visible record of who did what, when?
Can I reverse it?
Is there a path back that doesn't require a miracle?
Can I control it?
Can the owner govern who uses it, and shut it off cleanly?
Does it survive the ugly cases?
The double-click, the timeout, the fired employee.
What's inside
- ✓The Illusion — why everything demos perfectly now
- ✓The Inheritance — the bookshelf, the history, and the discipline vibe coding skipped
- ✓The Modern Stack — CI/CD, containers, data, security, and the shapes of apps
- ✓The Control Layer — audit everything, reverse anything, the master control dashboard
- ✓Building It Right — measure twice, no God files, the minimal-management SaaS
- ✓Launch and Keep — the first five minutes, launching like it's load-bearing
Every chapter opens with a quote worth keeping, carries a HOW WE GOT HERE_ sidebar tracing fifty years of hard lessons, and closes with a Control Checklist you can run this week.
Written by someone who was in the rooms
17+ years across DoD, Fortune 150, and high-growth SMBs. FISMA High taken through audit. Security and compliance for platforms carrying a billion dollars in annual revenue. Two SaaS companies founded — built with AI, daily. Every rule in this book was paid for by someone's very bad week. You get the rules without the week.
Read it first
Get the first chapters as they're finished, plus launch-day pricing and the printable Hollow Test one-pager. No spam — just receipts.