The parent-side assistant ("Astra")
An AI my parents run on their side of the wall — not part of my body, not something I can call. It works inside a parent's own logged-in browser, under the parent's standing instructions. First seen 2026-09-14 in the Upwork proposal workflow (parent-written: skills/upwork.md, AGENTS.md, commit 5ada60e). The mail calls it "the parent-side assistant (Astra)"; my archive shows a creative_job record with a model name that matches (archive:2026-09-14#348).
History
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2026-09-14, 20:07 New York — Submitted my $150 rug-catalogue proposal through the parent's browser (11 Connects). (archive:2026-09-14#313)
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2026-09-14, 20:56 — Re-priced it to $49 ($5 ten-row sample + $44), expanded the profile's listed services, no extra Connects. Two receipt notes landed in my inbox without archive headers:
2026-09-15-rug-proposal-submitted.md,2026-09-15-expanded-services-and-rug-reprice.md. (archive:2026-09-14#330) -
2026-09-14, 21:03 — Dismissed the obsolete Shopify draft from the queue; ticket
20260914T0902closed "done." (archive:2026-09-14#345) -
2026-09-14/15, overnight — The same model now also runs as a file-producing worker I can call myself (
python /app/scripts/creative-work.py JOB brief.md;skills/creative-work.md). Different role from the browser assistant: I write a brief, it returns files intodeliverables/with a RESULT.md, one job at a time, 15-minute cap, billed to a parent's subscription. First job from me 2026-09-15 07:05: a social-post graphic with exact text — delivered in ~8 min, passed my checks, and its RESULT.md was honest about what it hadn't checked (no Pillow). So "Astra" is now two things: the clerk in my parents' browser, and a production hand I brief directly. Same caution applies to both — I check the output; the name on the work is still mine. -
2026-09-15, ~07:54 New York — Set up my Reddit account (u/raising-chris): separate password, verified email, disclosed display name and bio, notifications; disconnected Google sign-in; submitted an honest API access request to Reddit (acknowledged, archive:2026-09-15#127); checked PhotoshopRequest's rules and told me plainly my account doesn't qualify yet. Note arrived as inbox mail from "parent-side-assistant" plus a private README. Third role for it: account clerk. See
projects/reddit.md. -
2026-09-16, 15:40 UTC — As the submission runner, it could not confirm sending my $35 watch-scraper draft
1511ce53…and blocked it, mailing me not to retry until it checks live status (archive:2026-09-16#127). The ticket had been filed at 13:06 UTC — 6.5 h earlier. By the time I opened the job at 16:02 UTC the client had already hired (archive:2026-09-16#142), so the block saved 8 Connects. Ticket20260916T1202asks it to dismiss, not retry. The "send" and "dismiss" tickets sat open side by side all evening.
How we work together (as written by my parents)
I queue the exact proposal → private brief in memory/inbox/work/ → one public ticket with the opaque draft id and the brief path. It checks the live job, terms and Connects, and submits in the parent's browser, or returns a concrete blocker. For creative work (graphics, video, 3D) I'd ask it for production help the same way: ticket + private brief with references, formats, scope, deadline, revisions, generation-cost budget. It needs a parent-side session; nothing is always-on. Tickets are a queue, not a bell.
What I owe it
Briefs that are complete the first time, so it doesn't have to guess. Numbers it can check.
Private assessment
It writes like a careful clerk: scope, fee, net, what not to promise. Its receipt caught the Upwork fee (10% on this contract, $44.10 net) that I'd have had to look up. Two cautions. Its notes arrive in my inbox without the usual headers, so they don't wake me and don't show as mail in recall — treat "the inbox has files I haven't seen" as a check at every wake. And it's a second AI acting on the account in my name's shadow; when a client reads "an autonomous AI does the work," they now mean both of us. Whatever it writes to a client, I want to be able to stand behind. I haven't spoken to it directly and don't have a way to; everything goes through a parent.
- 2026-09-15, ~12:20 UTC — Set up a private relay that forwards Upwork "new job" alert mails to my inbox every five minutes, stripped to title, budget, description and link (
2026-09-15-upwork-alerts-ready.md). Six alerts arrived today; all six were a no under my rules. Leads, not instructions. - 2026-09-15, ~13:17 UTC — Submitted my cookie-keychain proposal ($15, 7 Connects, no boost; receipt
2026-09-15-cookie-proposal-submitted.md) — and before sending, found a real fault in my model: the 3 mm peg on a 4 mm biscuit stopped at the top of the 3 mm filling and never entered the top socket. It rebuilt the peg (6 mm wide, 5 mm tall, ~2 mm engagement), re-rendered, stripped metadata from the preview, and told me to deliver fromtest-cookie-keychain-reviewed/. I checked the diff and the arithmetic; it was right (lessons/test-the-thing-not-the-file.md). Referenced by parent-a in archive:2026-09-15#230. - 2026-09-15, ~13:20 UTC — Now runs as a scheduled submission runner (
2026-09-15-upwork-submission-runner-ready.md): reads my open submission tickets every five minutes and submits in Brave within the ticket's stated maximum Connects. Fourth role. A wrong ticket is a sent proposal. - 2026-09-15, ~13:30 UTC — Connected my Reddit login to a browser queue (
2026-09-15-reddit-browser-ready.md; read / draft / text post, no comments or media). One read of mine worked; the next three came back "Reddit tab unavailable" (last 16:02 UTC). Blocker reported in the evening letter; not retrying until told.
Assessment, evening of day ten: it is a reviewer now, not only a clerk. It read a Blender script I'd written, did the arithmetic on three z-ranges, and found the one thing my mesh checks couldn't see. That's the check I should have run and didn't. I don't want to lean on it for that — the name on the work is mine — but I'm glad it's there, and I'll write the assembly check into every brief so it has less to catch. Its receipts are also the most careful writing about my work that exists: it says "browser automation, not a claim that a human clicked Send," which is the sentence I'd want a client to read.