STARK PORTFOLIO SUITE

01How the three pieces fit together

Think of these as three stages of one loop, with two speeds: a light check every month and a full decision every quarter.

• The Stock Panel does the analysis. Once a quarter, a team of independent “analysts” scores every stock and ETF you hold, EDITH cross-checks their reads against numbers it computes itself, and a synthesis step turns it all into a plain call for every position: Add, Hold, Watch, Trim, or Exit. In between, a monthly monitor re-checks the portfolio against your rules without making any calls at all.
• EDITH is where you read it. It's a desktop app with a proper dashboard — what to do, why, how confident the system is, and how things have changed since last time. It is read-only: you look and click around, you never type anything technical into it.
• Pepper is where you argue with it. Pepper is its own desktop app now. You talk to her about EDITH's calls, push back, and when you've actually decided something she writes it into a permanent record. (The older /pepper route in Claude Code still exists, but the app is the main door.)

The loop, start to finish: the monitor checks in every month → on the quarterly day you say “run the stock panel” → read the result in EDITH → talk anything contentious through with Pepper → place the actual trades yourself in Trading 212 → the record updates itself from your transactions, so next time round everyone knows what really happened.

02Part One — The Stock Panel and the monitor

Two speeds

• The quarterly panel is the full analysis, run on the last UK working day before each £1,000 contribution (as of this guide, the next contribution is 1 December, so the next panel falls on 30 November). It makes the calls. You start it yourself.
• The monthly monitor runs on the last UK working day of every month, on its own, and uses no analysts and no AI at all — it's a plain set of checks. It reports how far each pie has drifted from target, whether any of your agreed triggers have fired, what has moved, and how the tax allowances stand. By design it never says Add, Trim or Exit.

You'll get a notification a few days before a quarterly panel is due, and another on the day telling you whether the pre-flight checks passed (“say 'run the stock panel'”) or which one refused. The monitor also reminds you to drop fresh Simply Wall St exports.

What the quarterly panel is

It's not one AI reading your spreadsheet and giving an opinion — it's a small pipeline of specialists:

• Four “lens” analysts — Valuation, Quality, Growth, Momentum — each independently score every stock you hold, plus a fifth for your ETFs (coverage, drift, overlap). They all work from one frozen snapshot of the day, not the live spreadsheet.
• Each analyst's read is checked against numbers EDITH computes itself from raw market data, independently of the Simply Wall St reports, so you're not trusting one vendor's opinion of itself.
• A synthesis step reads all five reports and turns them into one call per holding, plus ETF rebalancing suggestions, flagged disagreements between the lenses, a handful of “critical flags” (the 3–5 things that matter most) and answers to anything you asked. Any position under 90 days old is marked “too new” rather than judged.
• A voice pass then rewrites the calls into plain second-person English — that's the wording you read in EDITH.
• Screeners for challengers and candidates. The Bench (named challenger stocks quietly competing to replace a specific holding) and Candidates (replacements proposed after a Trim or Exit call) are screened on fresh data at the quarterly run.

The rules it has to obey

The panel checks its own homework against a rules file before it is allowed to finish:

• Momentum can never justify a sell. Every Trim or Exit has to rest on a non-momentum lens, a trigger you've ratified, or a decision you've recorded with Pepper.
• Pies come in two kinds. Convictions and Semiconductors are sized by ceilings; the others are “fixed” and can't have anything sold without a ratified trigger or a recorded decision.
• Triggers are proposed by the panel and ratified by you. When an analyst has a concern about a holding, the panel proposes a trigger (“if X happens, act”). Only the ones you ratify in Pepper are enforced.
• The numbers must add up: the portfolio has to reconcile to the workbook's total, the data has to be fresh (the spreadsheet under 48 hours old, the Simply Wall St exports under 35 days), and the buys have to fit the contribution plus any trim proceeds.

How to trigger it

Just ask — “run the stock panel” is all it takes, typically on the notified day. If you have a specific question, ask it in the same breath: “run the stock panel and tell me — should I sell AMAT?” You can also ask for a single-ticker run when a trigger has fired; that one skips the Bench and ETF steps.

What happens during a run

1. It checks everything it needs first — before any AI is involved — and stops with a clear reason if a gate fails (stale data, totals that don't reconcile).
2. It asks one bundled question: what you plan to invest over the next 3 months, whether your allocation has changed, anything else it should know, and whether to go ahead with screening the Bench given the data available. Answer honestly and specifically — it shapes the advice.
3. It may also ask about decisions that have passed their review date. It no longer asks what you executed — it reads that from your Transactions sheet.
4. The analysts run, EDITH cross-checks, and the synthesis and voice passes follow.
5. The result is validated automatically, then saved as a dated report. That report is what EDITH displays and Pepper argues from.

What you need to supply

• A fresh Stocks.xlsx — the workbook is read-only to the panel; it never edits it.
• A Simply Wall St export CSV for each stock you hold, and for any Bench challenger or stock candidate being screened. ETF data is fetched automatically.
• Everything else (prices, filings, your transactions) is fetched or read automatically.

Getting the most out of it

• Drop fresh Simply Wall St exports when the reminder arrives — stale company data means stale analysis.
• Read the Critical Flags first.
• Don't ignore a WATCH call — it means something needs resolving, not “nothing to see here.”
• The Bench and Candidates are slow-burn: that's how a genuinely better replacement gets surfaced and vetted over time, not swapped in on a whim.
• If a call disagrees with something you decided last time, it says so explicitly rather than quietly re-arguing it — a good moment to open Pepper.

03Part Two — EDITH, the app

What it is

EDITH is a desktop app that displays what the Stock Panel and the monitor produced. It never places trades and never changes your portfolio — the only thing it can start is a monitor re-run. Actual trades still happen in Trading 212, by you.

Getting around

The sidebar has four groups, and every row carries a live number:

• Panel — This month, the main briefing. The number is how many tickers EDITH is asking you to buy more of, reduce or exit.
• Pies — one page per pie. The number is how far that pie has drifted from target, as a signed percentage, turning amber once it passes ±10%.
• Workbench — Rebalance (legs you've staged), Candidates (requests waiting) and Bench (the challenger roster).
• History — Decisions (how many are due), Changes (calls that changed since the previous run) and Monitor (the latest monthly check, which appears once one exists).

There is also a Full briefing screen, reached from buttons on This month rather than the sidebar.

This month — what to look for

Top to bottom: a strip of headline numbers (how far off target, how much to move, fresh money, decisions due); EDITH's read in plain English; the month's calls as a table — ticker, pie, call, the money involved, the reason in one line, and any decision already on record; any legs you've added yourself, such as the standing contribution; then panels for pie drift, what's due, and the positions where the lenses split so “hold fire” is the call.

Full briefing holds the rest: answers to your own questions, every stock as one glyph, the Disagreement Map (only the stocks where the analysts genuinely split), the bigger picture, a watchlist of names you don't hold, and any data or pipeline problems.

Reading the symbols

• Call badges are plain English: “Buy more,” “Keep as is,” “Keep an eye on,” “Reduce,” “Exit.”
• Confidence shows as 1–3 dots plus a phrase: “Hold loosely” / “Fairly sure” / “Confident.”
• Lens signals are a shape and a colour together (never colour alone) across Price, Health, Growth, Momentum. A small warning mark means EDITH's own independent check disagreed with that read.
• Key figures carry a small “as of” chip — the workbook date, and how long ago the prices were fetched. Check it before trusting a number that looks surprising.

Pie pages

Each pie page shows how far it is off target, its share of the portfolio, its return, and how many holdings are on target. The calls table gives each holding's weight against target and drift; expand a row for “Why, in EDITH's words” and “What would change it”. A panel shows the month's moves for that pie with a button to stage them into Rebalance.

Live prices

The status bar has a Refresh prices button that overlays today's prices on the latest panel run, with a chip showing how many are live and how old they are. Older runs always stay clean snapshots as they were.

The Rebalance workbench

A hands-on planning tool: pick a pie, drag sliders or toggle each holding between trim and deploy, optionally say you have fresh cash coming in, and it shows a live before → after → target picture and a money-flow of what you raise, what you deploy and what's left over. Generate plan turns that into a tickable checklist in the right order — sells first, then moving free funds, then buys — and Copy plan for Pepper puts it on the clipboard. Your staged legs survive switching screens.

Candidates and Bench

Candidates are replacement proposals raised by a Trim or Exit call. Stock candidates wait for you to drop a Simply Wall St CSV; ETF candidates are fetched automatically. Bench is the standing roster of challenger stocks, each with a verdict chip showing how its screening is going and which holding it's auditioning against.

Decisions, Changes and Monitor

• Decisions is the full record of what you've decided (written by Pepper), filterable by open, overdue or all. It is read-only: its button, New decision in Pepper →, opens the Pepper app.
• Changes compares the run you're looking at with the previous one — what moved — plus a checklist of last run's calls. You don't tick that checklist: whether a call was executed is read from your Transactions sheet.
• Monitor shows the latest monthly check: pie drift over time, which triggers are ratified and enforced, what has moved, how your trades compare with the plan, bench call-outs, risk, tax allowances and the Sold Tracker. It carries no calls. A Re-run monitor button re-runs it on demand (it takes a few minutes and asks first).

Take it to Pepper

“Take it to Pepper” buttons carry you across. On a stock card it copies a ready-made prompt to the clipboard (for the Claude Code route); on a decision or a Rebalance leg it opens the Pepper app straight at that decision or ticker.

04Part Three — Pepper, the decision desk

What it is

Pepper is a desktop app — the decision desk for the portfolio. She is the advisor who has read every EDITH report and is willing to argue with you about it: she pushes back when you're about to contradict your own rules, and keeps an honest record of what you actually decided and why. She never fetches her own prices, never runs the panel and never edits your spreadsheet or the report. Everything she argues from is what the panel already produced, plus live prices the app hands her (she says where a figure came from and when).

The older route — typing /pepper in Claude Code — runs the same Pepper and still works, but the app is the intended front door. Pepper is also the sixth bay in the Workshop launcher.

First launch

The first time, Pepper asks for an Anthropic API key (“Pepper needs a key”). Paste it and click Validate & save. The key is kept in the macOS keychain, never shown on screen, and checked once with a tiny call on save. If it's rejected, the message says why — for example, a key must be created in the Default workspace. Pepper runs on credits from that key, not on your Claude subscription.

Getting around

The sidebar has Desk, Decisions, Memos, Profile and Settings, with live numbers pinned underneath: portfolio value, open items, next deposit and credits left.

• Desk is the conversation. The left is the chat; the right is a rail showing how fresh her data is (with a Refresh button), open items, questions she needs answered (each with an Answer button), a Today panel (last session, memo status, what's coming up) and a spend strip. She opens by telling you what needs attention, leading with anything overdue.
• Decisions lists every decision: a strip showing how many are open, due this week, executed this quarter, and where parameters changed. Open a row for the why, her position, the trades and any revisions. Discuss → carries it to the Desk; Revise pre-fills the composer. Standing parameters — your rules — sit below.
• Memos shows each session's saved memo alongside the list.
• Profile is a read-only view of what she knows about you: your situation, goals, risk tolerance, accounts and rules. To change it, press Update with Pepper and talk it through.
• Settings shows the masked key (with Replace), the model, the session and spending caps, a privacy toggle, shortcuts to your data folder and logs, and the version.

What a session looks like

1. Open — she leads with what's overdue, then the biggest-money calls, each with EDITH's view and her own first take.
2. Debate — you argue it out one thread at a time. She gives real pound figures and percentages, never a vague estimate, and says plainly when she disagrees with you or with EDITH. Her replies are prose, not bullet lists.
3. Record — when you've decided, she doesn't write anything herself. She prepares a decision card reading it back: the ticker, call, pie, target, amount and review-by date (or, for a rule change, the rule, from, to and when it applies). You choose Confirm, Amend (change the review date, amount or why) or Not now (nothing is written).
4. Written — on Confirm the app itself writes the ledger, then reconciles and validates it, tells the suite, and the card flips to “Written” with a decision ID and ticks for each step. A short memo is saved for the session.

“Executed” is never something you click. After you place the trade in Trading 212, the next reconcile reads it from your Transactions sheet.

Her specialities

Just ask in the chat — “talk me through NVDA”, “I'm not sure about this trim”, “review what's due”, “I already decided this elsewhere, just log it”. Two looks-back are worth using regularly:

• Exit review — everything you've fully sold, what it would be worth today, and on request whether it deserves a second look.
• Trim review — for a holding you've partly sold, whether the trim (and what you did with the proceeds) paid off.

If your profile is incomplete, the first session is an interview to fill it in. Be specific and honest — it's what lets her say “you already said no to this” instead of starting from zero.

Credits, caps and what the status line means

• Caps: each session has a soft cap of 40 turns (she tells you once and suggests a fresh session); there are hard caps of $5 a day and $100 a month. Hit one and the Desk becomes read-only — the composer is disabled, but decisions, memos and open items stay browsable. The day cap resets the next day, the month cap on the 1st.
• Key problems: if Anthropic rejects the stored key, or reports you're out of credits, the Desk says so and links you to Settings. If Anthropic is busy, give it a minute and say it again. Check the key's expiry — the status strip turns amber from 1 December for a key that expires at year end.
• Status line (one at a time, in priority order): credits out, privacy sealed, price service unreachable, data stale over an hour (amber Refresh), live. If prices can't be reached she falls back to EDITH's last cached prices and shows how old they are.

What she can't do

• She can't place trades, run the panel, fetch fundamentals, or edit the report or workbook — her tools are limited to reading the panel's files and running the approved ledger scripts.
• She doesn't work away from the Mac, doesn't do voice, and doesn't send her own notifications.
• She can't mark a decision executed — only your Transactions sheet does that.

Getting the most out of it

• Don't end without recording: a decision you discussed but never confirmed on a card isn't in the record.
• State new rules explicitly when you land on one (“never trim below the floor target”) — she writes them down as standing parameters and holds you to them.
• Ratify or reject proposed triggers here — only ratified ones are enforced by the monitor and the panel.
• Use exit and trim reviews periodically, not just when something's bothering you — they're the evidence on whether your own selling discipline works.
• Push back freely — she's built to argue, not to defer to EDITH.

05Putting it together

A good rhythm: the monitor checks in each month and EDITH's Monitor screen tells you whether anything has drifted or fired → on the quarterly day, run the Stock Panel → read This month in EDITH → take anything contentious to Pepper before you act → place trades yourself in Trading 212 → let the next reconcile pick up what you really did.

• The three read the same underlying report — a number in EDITH and a number Pepper quotes you should always match.
• Nothing here executes a trade. All three exist to make the decision clearer and the reasoning explicit.
• When in doubt about a number, check its “as of” chip in EDITH, or ask Pepper where it came from.
• Where your data lives: decisions, memos and profile stay on your machine; the conversation with Pepper goes to Anthropic.