October Fest Week Founder Time-Box Worksheet - Engineering vs Marketing Capacity 2026

Your October Next Fest week has fourteen Slack threads, a trailer re-export, and a P0 menu hitch that only reproduces on the fest branch. You answered Discord until 1 a.m., skipped Wednesday demo smoke, and promoted nextfest-oct-2026-rc5 anyway because marketing promised a GIF refresh at noon.

October 2026 stacks engineering (hotfix depots, smoke rituals, crash receipts) and marketing (trailer edits, store copy, live posts) into the same seven calendar days for solo founders and two-person teams. Cash worksheets tell you what you can afford; this Money & Business worksheet tells you how many founder hours exist and which lane owns them—before burnout picks the schedule for you.

Pair with fest marketing spend cap (cash), contractor vs hire fest week (who you pay), and fest marketing GIF audio opinion (what marketing must not promise). This URL owns founder hour lanes and defer discipline—not contractor day rates or metadata checklists.

Non-repetition note: Contractor vs hire compares employee vs contractor dollars; fest spend cap caps marketing cash. This worksheet allocates founder time across engineering and marketing when both compete in fest week.

Why this matters now (October 2026)

1. Fest week compression — Store traffic, Discord volume, and depot promotions spike in the same window; unscoped founder time becomes invisible overtime.
2. Post-receipt culture — Teams file BUILD_RECEIPT rows for builds but not for founder hours—partners cannot see why smoke slipped.
3. Hotfix vs trailer conflict — Trailer editors need afternoon feedback; engineers need afternoon repro—without caps, marketing wins and crash symbolicate receipts slip to Sunday.
4. Async playtest volume — 18 playtest feedback tools generate CSVs and VODs that exceed stand-up time; capacity worksheet sets ingest budget before Tuesday CSV ritual (planned sibling).
5. SteamPipe wall-clock — Upload queue telemetry (planned) is narrative; founders still burn hours watching queues unless defer rules exist.

Direct answer: Fill fest-week-capacity-2026.md with daily hour caps, split engineering_floor_hours vs marketing_burst_hours, write a defer list for anything that fails caps, and file fest_week_capacity_receipt_v1.json before fest Monday—including optional founder_hours_planned on BUILD_RECEIPT.

Who this is for and what you get

Time: ~60 minutes first worksheet; 10 minutes nightly during fest week.
Prerequisites: Fest calendar dates (T-7 through T+3), rough sleep floor, fest spend cap draft if marketing tasks exist.

Beginner path — the daily caps template

Copy this table into fest-week-capacity-2026.md and fill before fest Monday:

Beginner rule: engineering_cap + marketing_cap + admin ≤ wake_budget - sleep_floor. If math fails, you already planned burnout—lower marketing cap first, not sleep.

Success check: Each day has one primary engineering outcome (e.g., “Wednesday smoke passes”) and one marketing outcome (e.g., “GIF capsule live”), not twelve parallel goals.

Developer path — capacity lanes and gates

Lane definitions

Gates T1–T6 (file in receipt)

Engineering floor — protect rituals first

Subtract non-negotiable engineering blocks before assigning feature work:

Formula:

ritual_hours_week = (smoke_min + row_review_min) * weeks_in_fest_window / 60
engineering_floor_hours = ritual_hours_week + hotfix_reserve_hours

Default hotfix_reserve_hours = 8 for solo founder fest week (two half-days). Raise to 12 if you ship daily during fest.

If engineering_cap on a day is less than engineering_floor_hours / days_with_promotion, move promotion or defer marketing—do not steal smoke time.

Marketing burst — align with spend cap

From fest marketing spend cap:

Burst pattern: Stack marketing on T0–T+1 (4h/day cap in template) only if engineering smoke passed T-3. Otherwise marketing cap stays 1h until smoke is green.

Cross-link contractor vs hire: if contractor owns comms, subtract those tasks from founder marketing cap and add contractor oversight row (30–60 min/day) in admin lane.

Defer list discipline

Every task that does not fit caps goes to defer_list—not “maybe tonight.”

Defer rules:

1. No defer of smoke or promote gates — only features and polish defer.
2. Store-facing promises require user_visible: true and comms template (GIF audio opinion).
3. Partner diligence items defer only with written note in Q3 diligence packet appendix—never silent defer.

Defer list markdown starter

# fest-week-defer-2026.md

| task_id | reason | earliest_day | owner | user_visible |
|---------|--------|--------------|-------|--------------|
| lore-bible-website | marketing_cap | T+14 | founder | false |
| second-language-capsule | engineering_cap | post-fest | contractor_art | true |

fest_week_capacity_receipt_v1.json

Store beside BUILD_RECEIPT evidence:

{
  "schema": "fest_week_capacity_receipt_v1",
  "fest_window": "2026-10-next-fest",
  "generated_at": "2026-10-01T18:00:00Z",
  "founder_count": 1,
  "sleep_floor_hours": 7,
  "days": [
    {
      "day": "T-3",
      "engineering_cap_h": 6,
      "marketing_cap_h": 2,
      "engineering_actual_h": null,
      "marketing_actual_h": null,
      "smoke_required": true,
      "smoke_passed": null
    }
  ],
  "engineering_floor_hours": 11.5,
  "marketing_burst_hours_max": 18,
  "defer_list": [
    {
      "task_id": "trailer-v3-color-pass",
      "reason": "exceeds_marketing_cap_T-2",
      "earliest_day": "T+4",
      "owner": "contractor_motion",
      "user_visible": false
    }
  ],
  "gates": {
    "T1_daily_caps_defined": true,
    "T2_engineering_floor_reserved": true,
    "T3_marketing_within_cap": true,
    "T4_defer_list_written": true,
    "T5_receipt_committed": true,
    "T6_build_receipt_linked": false
  },
  "totals_planned": {
    "engineering_h": 62,
    "marketing_h": 18,
    "admin_h": 14
  }
}

Working dev notes:

• Fill engineering_actual_h / marketing_actual_h nightly—honest overrun feeds post-fest retrospective.
• Set smoke_required: true on any day with branch promotion planned.
• Link build_label in BUILD_RECEIPT when T6_build_receipt_linked becomes true.

BUILD_RECEIPT optional row — founder_hours_planned

Add optional columns to your BUILD_RECEIPT CSV or JSON (names illustrative):

Promotion rule: If demo_smoke_ok is true but founder_hours_planned is missing and fest opens in < 72h, treat as yellow—not blocking, but log in Thursday row review.

Pair with top-20 evidence receipts hub when partners ask for ops discipline beyond crashes.

Seven scenarios (A–G)

Proof table (promote week)

Integration with playtest and comms

18 playtest feedback tools recommend facilitator README rows for capture paths—add founder ingest cap row:

When triage exceeds cap, defer low-severity tags to post-fest—do not expand engineering floor by skipping sleep.

Working dev path — validation sketch

import json

def validate_capacity_receipt(path: str) -> None:
    data = json.load(open(path, encoding="utf-8"))
    assert data["schema"] == "fest_week_capacity_receipt_v1"
    days = data["days"]
    for d in days:
        assert d["engineering_cap_h"] + d["marketing_cap_h"] <= 9, f"day {d['day']} caps exceed 9h work"
    planned_eng = data["totals_planned"]["engineering_h"]
    assert planned_eng >= data["engineering_floor_hours"], "engineering below floor"
    assert data["gates"]["T4_defer_list_written"] == bool(data["defer_list"])
    print("OK", planned_eng, "engineering_h planned")

Adjust 9 to your wake budget minus sleep and admin.

Common mistakes

Pairing matrix (sibling worksheets)

Post-fest retrospective (30 minutes)

Worked example — solo founder, October fest window

Assumptions: One founder, $1,500 marketing pool from fest spend cap, contractor handles trailer motion (not in founder marketing cap except 30 min/day oversight), fest branch promotes T-3 and T+1.

Totals: Engineering 28h over promote window (within 62h planned fest-week engineering in receipt example), marketing 12h (under 18h burst max for mid cap pool).

Defer rows filed:

• second-language-capsule → T+14 (engineering_cap)
• devlog-long-form → T+7 (marketing_cap)
• re-record-trailer-ambient → contractor (contractor_motion)

BUILD_RECEIPT row on promote:

build_label=nextfest-oct-2026-rc6
demo_smoke_ok=true
founder_hours_planned=8
capacity_receipt_path=release-evidence/ops/fest_week_capacity_receipt_v1.json
defer_count=3

Two-founder split (engineering + marketing roles)

When Founder A engineers and Founder B runs comms, still use one receipt with per-day founder_id:

{
  "day": "T0",
  "founder_id": "A",
  "engineering_cap_h": 4,
  "marketing_cap_h": 0,
  "founder_id_B": "B",
  "engineering_cap_h_B": 0,
  "marketing_cap_h_B": 4
}

Handoff rule: B does not post “patch live” until A attaches demo_smoke_receipt_v1.json path in shared BUILD_RECEIPT thread. Prevents the classic fest failure mode: marketing announces a build that fails cold install.

Conflict resolution: If both founders are engineers, alternate marketing days—do not double marketing caps because two people exist.

Publisher one-pager excerpt (copy/paste)

When a partner asks “how are you staffed for fest week?” attach:

We run a founder capacity receipt (fest_week_capacity_receipt_v1.json) with daily engineering and marketing caps, a defer list for non-critical work, and Wednesday demo smoke before branch promotion. Marketing spend is capped separately in our fest spend worksheet. Contractor roles are scoped in contractor-vs-hire receipts.

Link Q3 diligence demo packets for evidence-folder norms; this paragraph answers operational capacity, not content of the game.

Hour theft audit (end of T+3)

List tasks that consumed time outside caps:

Honest audit beats heroic retrospective stories. If audit shows more than three lane mis-files on T0 alone, rebuild caps for the next fest—do not “try harder” with the same template.

Steamworks and evidence cross-links

Capacity planning does not replace those artifacts—it ensures you have hours to produce them.

Key takeaways

• October fest week stacks engineering and marketing on the same founder calendar.
• Daily hour caps prevent silent overtime better than weekly goals alone.
• Engineering floor reserves smoke, row review, and hotfix buffer before features.
• Marketing burst must align with fest spend cap cash.
• fest_week_capacity_receipt_v1.json documents planned vs actual hours.
• Defer list is mandatory—not a failure, a schedule tool.
• BUILD_RECEIPT optional founder_hours_planned links capacity to build_label.
• Distinct from contractor vs hire economics.
• T1–T6 gates give promote-week pass/fail language.
• T-3 smoke is non-deferrable when promotion is planned.
• Playtest triage gets its own daily cap—see 18 playtest tools.
• Queue watching is not engineering—cap it.
• Two-founder teams split lanes but share one receipt.
• GIF marketing promises stay separate from engineering caps—see GIF opinion.
• Honest actual_h fields beat heroic planning.
• Post-fest retrospective updates next year’s caps.

FAQ

Is this only for Next Fest?
No—any seven-to-ten-day visibility spike (launch week, major patch) can reuse the template; rename fest_window in JSON.

We have two founders—one receipt or two?
One receipt with founder_id per days[] row, or parallel receipts merged in BUILD_RECEIPT—pick one pattern and stay consistent.

What if marketing is entirely contracted?
Set marketing_cap_h to oversight only (1–2h/day); shift hours to engineering or sleep.

Does this replace project management software?
No—it is a capacity ceiling document; tasks still live in your tracker.

Can I skip JSON and only use markdown?
Markdown caps suffice for solo use; JSON is for BUILD_RECEIPT and partner diligence pairing.

What if smoke fails on T-3?
Marketing cap drops to 0 until smoke passes; promotion moves to T-2 or later—document in defer list.

How does this relate to refund correlation playbook?
Refund tags justify engineering floor increases next fest—retrospective input, not same-day cap changes.

Founder is also the only QA—where do QA hours go?
Engineering lane (smoke + repro); if QA exceeds cap, defer features or hire contractor QA row.

Should stream hours count as marketing?
Yes—live streams are marketing cap unless the stream is debugging (then engineering with public caveat).

What about Bevy schedule debug hitches during fest?
Engineering floor absorbs repro; defer non-P0 art passes.

Conclusion

Fest week does not create more hours—it reallocates them under stress.

Cap each day. Protect smoke. Defer honestly. File fest_week_capacity_receipt_v1.json. Link founder hours on BUILD_RECEIPT when partners ask why promote slipped.

Next reads: Fest spend cap, Contractor vs hire, Wednesday demo smoke, BUILD_RECEIPT evening pipeline.