Master GTM — Gate Register & Tempo Protocol

§1

Why two gates

Different rhythms, different decisions, one protocol.

The Master GTM has two gates because two different decisions need protection: posture (does the Reef still know what it is?) and tempo (is each motion in flight pulling its weight?). Conflating them collapses both decisions; separating them gives each its proper rhythm and its proper authority.

The Launch Posture Gate is quarterly. It asks whether the Reef's strategic posture — the four positions, the channel hierarchy, the kill list, the economic logic — still holds against what's happening in the market and inside Webgold Designs. It is run by Stephan (founder) and Gem (architect). Its outcome is binary at the macro: hold, adjust, pivot. A pivot triggers a Spine version-bump.

The Tempo Gate is weekly. It asks whether each in-flight motion is performing, holding, or faltering. It is run every Monday by the Marketing Lead (Gem in dual capacity, transitioning to Yohance) with active service-line voices when their content is in the lane. Its outcome per motion is one of three states: lean-in, hold, pull-back. The state writes back to the motion's tempo_state field in HARMONY_CALENDAR and as a discrete row in GATE_REGISTER.

Both gates produce GATE_REGISTER rows, both feed the cascade discipline, both protect the Reef from the two failure modes most likely to break it: (a) drifting from doctrine without meaning to (Posture failure), and (b) burning effort on motions that are no longer compounding (Tempo failure).

§2

The Launch Posture Gate

Quarterly · Stephan + Gem · 90 minutes.

The Launch Posture Gate is the macro check on the Reef. It runs four times a year — at the boundaries of operational quarters — and its question is simple: has the posture shifted?

Trigger and cadence

Q3 2026 Posture Gate: Friday 26 June 2026 (end of Sprint 4)
Q4 2026 Posture Gate: Friday 26 September 2026 (post Full Launch, two weeks in)
Q1 2027 Posture Gate: Friday 26 December 2026
Q2 2027 onwards: last Friday of each quarter
Out-of-cycle trigger: any signal that warrants posture review (major competitor move, regulatory shift, founder positioning change, named-client outcome that disproves a Spine claim)

Inputs

The current Spine version + any v1.x patches that have accumulated since the last Posture Gate
The Harmony Calendar's last 13 weeks of Tempo Gate data (aggregate Lean-in / Hold / Pull-back patterns by service line and channel)
Newsletter list growth + gated-asset download metrics + event attendance + attributable inbound (HubSpot CRM, T-MGTM-117 dependency)
The CMIF's most recent quarterly research integration (white-space audit, persona refinement, channel intelligence)
Any out-of-cycle trigger documentation

Outcomes

State	What it means	What follows
Hold	Posture remains correct. Doctrine continues unchanged through next quarter.	GATE_REGISTER row logged with state=passed, gate_type=launch_posture. Next Posture Gate in 90 days.
Adjust	Posture remains broadly correct but a specific section needs refinement (e.g., one channel retired, one new persona signal incorporated, a specific Kill List item added).	Spine patch version (e.g., v1.0 → v1.1 or v1.1 → v1.2). GATE_REGISTER row with state=passed-with-revisit. Patch issued within 14 days.
Pivot	Posture has shifted materially. The translation-tax sentence still holds, but the four-position commitment, the channel hierarchy, or the economic logic needs substantial rework.	Spine major version (e.g., v1.x → v2.0). GATE_REGISTER row with state=failed. Cascade phases re-run as needed. Sub-GTMs trigger re-alignment passes (T-MGTM-114 process).

Documentation

Every Posture Gate produces one GATE_REGISTER row with gate_type=launch_posture, the eight criteria scored, the outcome (Hold / Adjust / Pivot), the gate owner (Stephan or Gem), and the date. Notes capture rationale.

§3

The Tempo Gate

Weekly · Marketing Lead + active voices · 30 minutes Monday morning.

The Tempo Gate is the micro check on motions in flight. Every motion in the Harmony Calendar that is in active publishing window — typically the current week and the next two weeks — gets a Tempo state set during the Monday morning gate.

Trigger and cadence

Every Monday, 09:00–09:30 T&T time. No exceptions. If Monday is a public holiday, Tuesday morning.
Out-of-cycle trigger: any motion that hits a published-and-immediately-pulled state mid-week (rare; logged separately).

Who attends

Marketing Lead — Gem (dual capacity), transitioning to Yohance on confirmed elevation.
Active service-line voices — only those whose motions are in the current 3-week window. E.g., during Sprint 2 (Commerce), the Commerce specialist attends; during Sprint 5, Yohance and Anyah both attend (Identity + Content).
Stephan attends when a Founder-voice motion is in the window. Otherwise his time is freed.

The three Tempo states

Lean-in

Motion is performing — engagement, click-through, qualified discovery calls all trending up. Action: double down. Schedule follow-up content. Amplify on rented channels. Cross-promote in Newsletter. Repurpose for another channel within 14 days.

Hold

Motion is on track to its expected trajectory. Not breakout, not faltering. Action: maintain. Ship the next motion as planned. Don't over-invest in this one; don't pull it.

Pull-back

Motion is faltering — engagement absent, qualified leads zero, signal flat. Action: reduce frequency, kill the channel allocation, or retire the motion entirely. Three consecutive Pull-backs across the same motion class triggers a Kill List addition.

Documentation

Every Tempo Gate produces one GATE_REGISTER row per motion reviewed with gate_type=tempo, the criteria scored that week, the state (Lean-in / Hold / Pull-back), the gate owner (Marketing Lead), and the date. The motion's tempo_state field in HARMONY_CALENDAR is updated to match.

Why this matters — the Patience Zone

Per Spine §11 (The Economy), the Reef's break-even is projected for late Q4 2026 / early Q1 2027. Before that inflection, the Reef is consuming opportunity cost without producing comparable revenue. The Tempo Gate is the mechanism that protects against premature pivot during the Patience Zone — it makes early signals visible weekly so the team holds the doctrine instead of chasing short-term lead generation. Lean-in / Hold / Pull-back lets us tune the engine without abandoning it.

§4

Gate criteria — the eight tests

Both gates score against the same criteria. Posture scores aggregate; Tempo scores per motion.

Every motion that ships passes through these eight tests. The Filter (Phase 6) operationalises them as a one-page card; the Gate Register codifies them in Airtable. They are deliberately specific — vague tests produce vague decisions.

Translation tax addressed. The motion makes Caribbean context legible without requiring the audience to teach. The translation tax is named (or the absence of it is implied through Caribbean fluency).

Caribbean-context anchored. The motion references at least one Caribbean-specific signal — a regulation, a market behaviour, a named place, a cultural rhythm, a regional persona. Generic global content fails.

Named author present. A credentialed human is attributed. No anonymous corporate voice. No "the team." Stephan, Gem, Yohance, Anyah, a named service-line lead, or a named guest author.

Outcomes (not features) lead. The motion leads with what changes for the reader / prospect / market — not with what Webgold built or shipped. Features support outcomes; outcomes lead.

Filter vocabulary clean. No banned terms (per Spine §10 Kill List + DT-4 Filter authority): no "solutions" as standalone noun, no "world-class", no "transform" as throwaway, no "innovative", no "leverage", no "synergy", no "best-in-class", etc.

Proof referenced. The motion either references existing proof (named client, quantified outcome, Caribbean Digital Awards win, named conference panel) or generates new proof (publishes a position that becomes citable, runs an event that becomes a future case study).

Channel fit confirmed. The motion runs on a channel where its position activates (per Phase 3 Channel Matrix activation table). LinkedIn for authority + opinion; Newsletter for owned audience; Events for activation; etc. Wrong channel = wrong test.

Cadence respects Tempo. The motion ships at a pace consistent with current Tempo state. A Lean-in week takes more frequency; a Hold week takes published-as-scheduled; a Pull-back week takes reduction or pause. Cadence ignores Tempo = waste.

§5

Connection to Airtable — the GATE_REGISTER table

Pattern A — separate table with FK to HARMONY_CALENDAR motion records.

The GATE_REGISTER table (created 2026-05-07, ID tblrwjOz3RTHHQlvf) is the operational ledger of every gate event. Per DT-26 Pattern A, it is a separate table with a foreign-key relationship to HARMONY_CALENDAR — not a multi-select field on the motion record. This preserves gate history, scales when criteria evolve, and supports per-motion reporting over time.

Schema (live in Airtable)

Field	Type	Purpose
`gate_id`	singleLineText (PK)	e.g., GR-S2-001 (Sprint 2 first gate)
`motion_link`	multipleRecordLinks → HARMONY_CALENDAR	FK to the motion this gate scored
`gate_type`	singleSelect	`launch_posture` (quarterly) or `tempo` (weekly)
`gate_state`	singleSelect	`pending` · `passed` · `failed` · `revisit`
`criteria_passed`	multipleSelects	Subset of the eight criteria that passed
`criteria_failed`	multipleSelects	Subset that failed (informs revision)
`gate_date`	date (ISO)	When the gate was run
`gate_owner`	singleLineText	Person who ran the gate
`notes`	multilineText	Rationale, decisions, escalations

§6

Operational rhythm

Where the gates fit in the weekly and quarterly Webgold Designs cadence.

Weekly

Monday 09:00–09:30 — Tempo Gate. Marketing Lead + active voices. Score motions in 3-week window. Update tempo_state. Log GATE_REGISTER rows.
Monday 09:30 onwards — content production resumes informed by Tempo state.
Friday 16:00–16:30 — Marketing Lead solo review. Quick Filter pass on next week's motions. Pre-flight before Monday Tempo Gate.

Quarterly

Last Friday of quarter — Launch Posture Gate. Stephan + Gem. 90 minutes. Aggregate Tempo data + CRM signals + CMIF refresh.
Outcome ratified within 24 hours via written entry in DEC-MGTM-* register.
Spine patch (Adjust) ships within 14 days; Spine major version (Pivot) triggers cascade phase re-runs as scoped.

Out-of-cycle

Either gate can fire out-of-cycle on signal. A motion that gets pulled mid-week — for example, a piece that the Filter catches as drifting from voice after publishing — generates an emergency GATE_REGISTER row with state=failed and explicit notes. A market signal that arrives between Posture Gates — for example, a major competitor exit, a regulatory ruling, a named-client outcome that disproves a Spine claim — can trigger an out-of-cycle Posture review. Frequency of out-of-cycle gates is itself a signal worth tracking.

§7

Escalation paths

When a gate ruling cascades upward.

Trigger	Escalation	Who decides
Three consecutive Pull-backs on same motion class (e.g., a specific channel for a specific persona)	Motion class added to Spine §10 Kill List. Spine patch issued.	Marketing Lead proposes; Stephan ratifies in next Posture Gate.
Tempo Gate flags a motion as Pull-back AND the motion's Filter status is Fail	Motion is killed mid-flight. Refund any committed channel spend. Log in Decision Trail.	Marketing Lead unilateral; Posture Gate retrospective.
Posture Gate rules Adjust	Spine patch (v1.x). Sub-GTM re-alignment task scheduled in PCC for each affected service line.	Stephan + Gem ratify; sub-GTM passes happen across two weeks.
Posture Gate rules Pivot	Spine major version (v2.0). All sub-GTMs re-aligned. CMIF Source Document Register updates. Decision Log mirrors. Cascade phase re-runs scoped.	Stephan + Gem ratify; cascade execution timeline reset.

§8

Mechanisations

Where the gates physically run today and what's coming.

Today

Tempo dial — already mechanised in the Cascade Execution Guide HTML's "Tempo Today" tab. Marketing Lead opens the cascade tab on Monday morning and sets the dial per motion. The dial writes nothing back yet (manual logging in GATE_REGISTER required).
GATE_REGISTER table — live in Airtable. Rows are added manually via the Airtable interface or via API.
HARMONY_CALENDAR tempo_state field — live. Marketing Lead updates manually after the Monday gate.

Coming (T-MGTM-XXX follow-ons)

PCC integration — once Cycle 4+ ships, /api/boot will return the GATE_REGISTER data and PCC will surface a Tempo Today tab natively. Tempo updates write back via PCC interface (PATCH endpoints similar to TASKS).
ops.webgold.co/gtm/tempo — standalone Tempo dial surface for the marketing layer to operate from outside PCC.
Cascade Execution Guide Tempo dial wired live — the existing Tempo Today tab will read GATE_REGISTER and write back via the same /api endpoint. Manual-only state ends.
Filter Card surface — Phase 6 deliverable. The eight criteria become a checkbox interface that Filter passes use; passes write to FILTER_PASSES table.

§9

Closing — Phase 5 ratified

v1.0 of the Gate Register & Tempo Protocol stands.

This document plus the GATE_REGISTER Airtable table plus the existing Tempo dial in the Cascade Execution Guide HTML constitute Phase 5 of the Master GTM Cascade. From this point forward, every motion that ships passes through these gates. Every gate produces a row. Every row preserves history.

The next phase is Phase 6 — Filter Card + Audits. The Filter card operationalises the eight criteria as a one-page reference, and the first two applications (WG-25 Staging Copy Audit, WG-21 Content Pipeline Audit) put the Filter into immediate production use.

The cascade resumes UPWARD at Phase 6 once Phase 5 is reviewed and ratified by Stephan.