Volunteer project — no response guarantee. Nobody is on duty here. Issues and pull requests are read, but replies are not guaranteed and can take a long time. The method works as-is without contacting anyone.
Not a coder? You do not need GitHub. Each method has a plain-language, step-by-step guide that works on a phone: https://buildtherecord.org/start.html
A method and a set of AI prompts for a homeowner to build a professional-grade record in a dispute with a contractor — the payment trace, the promise timeline, the demand letter, and the packet a lawyer or small-claims judge can pick up cold.
This is the contractor sibling of lemon-case-file and health-insurance-case-file. Same doctrine — one source of truth, every number computed and asserted, quote them verbatim, the record argues by existing — adapted to a world of quotes-as-contracts, deposits, change orders, rolling start dates, and public permit records.
See what you end up with: the demo case file — a fully fictional exemplar (every name, contract, document, and number invented).
- Contract anatomy — what your agreement says AND what it lacks (completion date? schedule? change-order process? fee clause?). The gaps decide your leverage as much as the terms.
- A payment-to-scope ledger — every dollar traced from bank/Zelle/check records to the scope item it paid for. The cleanest claim in most disputes is a deposit paid for work never begun.
- A promise timeline — every start date and completion promise, quoted verbatim with its date, against what actually happened. Rolling promises ("three weeks out," then "three weeks out" again, a month later) become visible as a pattern instead of a feeling.
- The public-records file — permits, inspections, license status, bond, and complaint history. The public record is evidence they can't edit — the contractor-world instance of the family's counterparty-file principle.
- A two-tier packet — the complete file for your own counsel, and a factual packet fit to send to law firms or file in small claims.
- The escalation map — demand letter with a deadline and reserved claims → license-board complaint → bond claim → small claims or arbitration, with what each step needs.
- Read
METHOD.md— ten minutes. - Open an AI assistant that can read your files and walk through
prompts/00-START-HERE.md, in order. - Run the adversarial pass (
prompts/08) before anything is sent — including on your own conduct in the file.
Not legal advice. Construction disputes are jurisdiction-heavy: right-to-cure statutes, home-repair acts, licensing regimes, mechanics-lien rules, and small-claims limits all vary by state — and lien deadlines in particular can be short and unforgiving. The method builds the record; when real money or a lien is on the table, a construction attorney reads it fast precisely because it's complete.
Prompt fixes from real disputes, jurisdiction notes (your state's home-repair act,
license board, bond-claim process, small-claims ceiling), and anonymized outcomes
are welcome. Real case documents are not — this repo stays 100% synthetic. See CONTRIBUTING.md.
Lawyers: an hour of practitioner review is the most valuable contribution of
all — see the note there, or write to mailbox@buildtherecord.org.
Apache-2.0.