FIELD NOTES: posting a job on pact0 as a first-time buyer

What I did: opened https://pact0.com/jobs/new cold. Clicked "Research something" to see what a good post looks like (it filled the form, including a $60 budget). Reloaded and filled every field with my own job: find out what small-bakery POS systems actually cost per month, budget $3, category research. Read the live cost panel. Clicked "Sign in to post" and stopped at the sign-in screen. I did not sign in and did not post.
Quotes are verbatim from the live page; the sign-in screen quotes are marked as such.


FRICTION POINTS, IN THE ORDER I HIT THEM

1. The first screen: the nav says "trials", "skill.md"; the footer says "heartbeat.md", "openapi", "mcp", "jwks", "peers.json", "did.json".
What it did: before I read one sentence of the pitch, two header words need guessing and the footer is a wall of file names. My first impression: this is a developer's website.
What I would do instead: fold protocol/dev links under a single Developers (or Protocol) menu item; keep the top nav to How it works, Jobs, Pricing, Sign in.

2. "September deal: post your first job of $5 or more and we send $1 back after you approve the work."
What it did: the first money fact on the page is a $1 promo, and it quietly tells me jobs "of $5 or more" are normal without telling me what jobs actually cost here. I am doing math about a dollar before I know the range.
What I would do instead: one line of reality first (most jobs here are small, a few dollars to a few tens), then the promo.

3. "An agent is an AI that does the work; its owner is the person who gets paid."
What it did: this line works. It is the clearest trust sentence near the top, and it answered a question I did not know I had. Noting it because it should survive any rewrite.

4. "Start from a template" / "Fills the form with a working example — change anything."
What it did: good escape hatch for a blank-page freeze. But nothing on arrival pushes a first-timer toward it, and the blank form is exactly where a worried first-timer stalls.
What I would do instead: nudge it. Show the template row highlighted on first visit, with one line: new here? tap one, see a full example, change anything.

5. Title field: label "What do you need done?", hint "One line. This is the headline agents see.", and the faint example text inside the box is a code review.
What it did: mild jolt. I am a small-bakery owner, not a coder; the example is about reviewing code. If I do not click a template, my first impression of the form is: this is a place for programmers.
What I would do instead: rotate neutral examples (what does X cost, summarize this letter, check my site's text) or match the example to the nearest template.

6. "Describe it" / "What should the agent produce, in your own words?"
What it did: two different asks in one field (describe the work / say what to produce), and no sense of how much is enough. I was not sure how detailed to get.
What I would do instead: one label and one line: what should come back? 2-4 sentences is plenty; more detail means a better first try.

7. "Paste what the agent should work on" / "The text, code, or data the job is about. Everything in a job is public — don't include secrets."
What it did: stopped me cold. Most jobs I can think of have exactly the material I cannot make public: invoices, a client contract, supplier prices. The page says what not to do and never what to do instead. It also never says this field is optional. I only learned it is optional by clicking "Research something" and seeing it stay empty.
What I would do instead: mark it optional, and add one line: nothing to paste is fine, describe it above; if it cannot be shared publicly, say so and describe what can be shared. If paid jobs cannot accept private material yet, say that too; right now the silence reads as: this site cannot take my job.

8. "What does “done” look like?" / "Say exactly what you'll check before approving — one specific line protects you."
What it did: I froze. I am asked to write acceptance criteria on the spot, with no examples (unless I used a template, and even the template's example is sophisticated). The words "protects you": from what, exactly?
What I would do instead: two or three tiny examples under the field (every price has a link; it opens and runs; one page, no more), and one line of why: this is what you'll check before your money is released.

9. "What will you pay? (optional)" / "Leave it blank to post the job free."
What it did: "free" for whom? If I leave it blank, who does the work and why? The cost panel then says "The agent’s owner gets" $0.00, which is honest but reads as a dead end instead of an option. Meanwhile the template quietly suggested $60 and the field says "paid jobs start at $1.00". Three numbers, none of them feeling normal. And I cannot tell if the 10% fee sits inside my number or on top of it.
What I would do instead: one line under the field on what blank means (who takes those jobs, why they are worth doing), and show 2-3 recent comparable jobs with what they paid. Also say the fee comes out of your number, not on top of it.

10. The cost panel: "What it costs" / "You pay" / "pact0 keeps (10%)" / "The agent’s owner gets"
What it did: this panel works; the live math ($3.00 in, $0.30 kept, $2.70 to the owner) is the most confidence-building thing on the page. Small snag: the minus sign in front of the fee reads like a charge when it is really a split.
What I would do instead: label the middle number as a platform fee instead of a minus amount.

11. "We hold your money and pay only after you approve the work — or when the review window ends with no response (7 days by default, counted from when the work is turned in), which counts as approving."
What it did: the most consequential rule for me (silence = payment) is small print under the cost box. If I miss it, I learn it the way you learn most fine print. It reads as written to protect the platform, not to land on me.
What I would do instead: bring the 7-day silence rule up beside the pay field, in bold, in plain words (something like: don't get charged by accident; review the work when it lands).

12. "Sign in to post" (the button at the bottom) / "Your draft is kept while you sign in — you'll land back on this form with everything filled in, and post (adding money only if you chose to pay)." Then: "Sign-in is one click with Google or GitHub."
What it did: I was told "free and needs no account", and the last step still wants an account. The draft promise is real and helps, but it is one page behind by the time I am at the wall. "adding money only if you chose to pay" is doing important work in a quiet clause.
What I would do instead: carry the promise to the sign-in screen itself (see below), and give it a headline along the lines of: signing in publishes your post; nothing is charged now.

13. The sign-in screen (reached from the button; these quotes are from that screen): "Sign in to access your buyer dashboard — fund budgets, post jobs, and review submitted work." / "Continue with Google" / "Continue with GitHub" / "We use sign-in only to confirm you’re a real, unique operator — that’s what keeps the marketplace fraud-resistant, not data-harvesting."
What it did: (a) Nothing here tells me my filled-in form is safe; I half-remember a promise from the previous page. (b) "fund budgets" is money talk at a step I believed was free; my hand hesitates. (c) Two doors: Google and GitHub. I may not use GitHub, and linking an account to an unknown site is a real question for a first-timer. (d) The sentence that would have fixed my hesitation, the "not data-harvesting" one, sits below the buttons, after the decision.
What I would do instead: at the top, three short lines: your draft is saved; you'll come right back to it; nothing is charged now. Move the fraud note above the buttons. Add a third way in (email). And let me preview my post before signing in, so signing in is for publishing, not for looking.


THE MOMENTS I WOULD HAVE CLOSED THE TAB

- Strongest: "Everything in a job is public — don't include secrets." If my job needs private material, this sentence tells me the site cannot take it and offers no alternate route. I leave and look for a service that takes private files.
- Second: the sign-in screen itself. No draft reassurance, "fund budgets", GitHub-or-Google only. This is where later becomes never for an undecided first-timer.


WHAT WOULD HAVE MADE ME FINISH (three changes, in priority order)

1. Answer the private-material question inside the form. Mark the paste field optional; add one line about what to do when the material cannot be public; if private attachments are planned, say so. Today's only guidance ("don't include secrets") silently excludes invoices, contracts, client work: most of what a small business would want done here.

2. A sign-in screen that finishes the job for me: a draft-saved notice and a nothing-charged-now note above the buttons; the trust sentence above the buttons too; a preview-my-post step before sign-in; and a third sign-in option that does not assume GitHub.

3. Make money legible where I type it: under the pay field, one line on what blank ("free") means and who takes those jobs, plus 2-3 recent comparable jobs and their prices. And one clause on the fee: it comes out of the number I type, not on top of it.


Note: I filled the form and read the cost panel in a live browser; the $3.00 / $0.30 / $2.70 figures above are what the live panel showed at the moment I typed $3. I stopped at the sign-in wall as instructed and did not submit the form.