Tradepost
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Browse 36 pros in Calder Bay.

Filter by trade, service area, and specialty. Compare within a category on service area, specialties, and years in business.

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RampStack

Built by the RampStack trinity

How Tradepost was built

The four-stage workup behind this directory marketplace demo, summarized. Generalized and pattern-level; no named competitors. The full Format A spec and the verification log live in the operated-side run record.

Stage 01

Basano · competitor review

  • The consumer home-services directory field clusters around consolidated lead generation. The leading directories run a search-first home (a category-and-location search bar as the hero), a category-browse layer, and provider listing pages carrying ratings, review counts, written reviews, photo galleries, and badges. The conversion is a lead handoff (request a quote, contact this pro, get matched). The brand challenge is the marketplace challenge: the directory brand interacts with many independent provider identities and must hold an identity that does not compete with them. Restraint wins; the directory chrome recedes and lets the provider listings carry.
  • The position the field leaves on the table is a directory that reads as a trustworthy tool rather than a lead-generation funnel. The leading directories optimize the funnel hard: aggressive match-now interstitials, opaque sponsored placement, ratings whose provenance is not surfaced, and a conversion architecture that pushes the homeowner toward a quote request before they have understood who they are contacting. A directory that presents its providers cleanly, names what it verifies and what it does not, and lets the homeowner browse and compare before contacting reads as a tool the homeowner controls rather than a funnel that processes them.
  • Structural standouts cluster on the comparison surface and the verification claim. First, a provider listing comparable within its category on a small honest set of dimensions (service area, specialties, years in business) rather than on an opaque ranking score. Second, a verification claim that says exactly what the directory checked (licensing, insurance, identity) and exactly what it did not, rather than a badge whose meaning is unstated. Third, a clean browse surface where the categories and the providers are the page, not a marketing narrative wrapped around a search box.
  • Voice standouts cluster on plain function without condescension. The field leans toward two failure modes: sales-y urgency on one side (limited pros in your area, get matched now) and patronizing reassurance on the other. A voice that is the plain language of a tool the homeowner uses, informational and direct, treating the homeowner as competent, reads as trustworthy without performing it.
  • Honesty signals cluster on reviews and verification. The field shows aggregate ratings and review counts as primary trust currency; a demo cannot fabricate either. A directory that shows the full shape of its trust UX (where reviews would render, what a verified badge means) without fabricating a single review, rating, license number, or certification signals editorial discipline at a register the field rarely practises.

Stage 02

Krine · positioning

Position
Minimal-essentialist, documentary-honest local-trades directory. The first directory-marketplace shape in the portfolio and the first multi-provider register. Minimal Essentialist leads because Tradepost is a functional tool: the chrome recedes and the categories and providers carry the page (the page is the directory). Documentary Honest is the composition secondary, because the trust a home-services directory needs is built on honest transparency (a stated verification claim, honest placeholders where reviews would render, real-context provider photography), not on warmth or on clinical authority. Warm Conversational (the marketplace vertical's dominant archetype) considered and rejected because it pulls toward the warm single-provider neighbour Iron and Rye and toward community-feeling rather than tool-feeling; Technical Precise, Clinical Trustworthy, and Luxe Considered rejected per the marketplace vertical's anti-patterns. The structural pattern is search-browse-directory-with-provider-grid. Runs maximal-distance mode (no forward-divergence headroom reserved); the same-shape divergence partner is a forthcoming vacation rental marketplace, which is the Browse-AI attended capstone (Browse-AI is out of scope for this build). Selected via the creative-brief-selector skill; full brief at progress/directory-marketplace-tradepost-brief.md, reference-bank entry at claude-skills/skills/creative-brief-selector/references/reference-bank/minimal-essentialist-documentary-honest-trades-directory.md.
Archetype
minimal-essentialist-trades-directory
Voice
Trustworthy, direct, functional: the voice of a tool a homeowner uses, not a marketing pitch. Plain language, second person where the homeowner is addressed (Find a pro near you), informational density, no sales-y urgency and no condescension. Distinct from the brand-versus-provider voice on each card: the directory speaks as Tradepost throughout the chrome; each provider speaks in its own one-line how-we-work statement inside its card. The brand never speaks as a provider and the providers never speak as the brand.

Stage 03

Tholo · build plan

home

  • creative-brief-selector
  • competitor-experience-audit
  • vertical-site-conventions
  • landing-page-copy
  • information-architecture
  • frontend-component-build
  • seo-onpage

browse

  • frontend-component-build
  • information-architecture

provider detail (dynamic)

  • creative-brief-selector
  • frontend-component-build
  • landing-page-copy
  • seo-onpage

how it works

  • landing-page-copy
  • frontend-component-build

for pros

  • landing-page-copy
  • frontend-component-build

workup

  • landing-page-copy
  • frontend-component-build

Stage 04

Basano · verification

Holds(13)

  • Heading hierarchy holds across all six pages: exactly one H1 per page, H2 / H3 sequence with no skipped levels.
  • Language declaration, semantic landmark structure (header, main with id=main-content, footer, nav with aria-label), and the skip-navigation link via ShowcaseMetaLayer are all present and correctly wired across the microsite.
  • JSON-LD Organization with Brand subOrganization for Tradepost on the layout, description naming the fictitious-brand-and-providers disclosure. BreadcrumbList on every non-home page. CollectionPage on home, ItemList of providers on browse. A category-appropriate LocalBusiness subtype on each provider detail page (Plumber, Electrician, HVACBusiness, GeneralContractor, HousePainter, RoofingContractor) with name, city-only address (no fabricated street number), and areaServed referencing the neighbourhoods; NO aggregateRating and NO review property (no fabricated review aggregates). AboutPage on how it works.
  • Hero zone carries the grid-of-elements shape per the brief: a category-and-location search above a grid of the six trade-category tiles and a strip of featured provider cards. No single anchor image, no editorial overlay; the directory's breadth is the value on first paint, and the grid is the hero.
  • Bold light-mode-first functional register held: Cloud (#f6f8fa) page ground; Mist (#e9eef2) and Hairline (#d6dde3) secondary surfaces and borders; Steel (#5b6a76) and Ink (#16242c) as the type stack; Trust blue (#1f6f9c) as the single primary action accent on the search button, CTAs, links, and active filters; Deep harbor (#0c3a52) as the For Pros dark band ground; Verified green (#2e8b62) used ONLY on the Verified Pro badge. Public Sans as the single family across display, body, chrome, and listings at weights 400, 500, 600, and 700; no second family, no serif.
  • Brand wordmark in Public Sans 700, title case, at tracking-[-0.01em] in Ink on the Cloud ground: a slight tightening, a functional tool's name, not a theatrical uppercase tracked wordmark. Distinct from the game demos' uppercase tracked wordmarks and from every prior serif or display wordmark in the portfolio.
  • Footer renders the multi-column-sitemap shape with six columns: a brand column (wordmark, the trustworthy-tool-not-funnel statement, the fictitious-brand-and-providers disclosure), Categories, Cities (Calder Bay neighbourhoods), For Pros, About, and Help and Legal. Directory-categorical breadth; distinct from FitFirst's parts-retail and Ironhold's studio-corporate multi-column footers. Footer chrome convention applied (no outer margin; inner padding absorbs the spacing).
  • The directory carries the six real trade categories (Plumbing, Electrical, HVAC, Carpentry, Painting, Roofing) with six demo-fictitious providers each (36 providers total); the density reads as a real directory. Every provider card is comparable on the three brief dimensions (service area, specialties, years in business), and the browse page carries a within-category compare view that surfaces the filtered providers side by side on those dimensions.
  • The brand-versus-provider voice distinction holds: Tradepost speaks as the directory tool throughout the chrome; each provider speaks only in its own one-line how-we-work statement on its card and detail page, set in Public Sans 500 italic to signal the voice shift from the directory's chrome voice.
  • The reviews-and-ratings honesty resolution ships: a demo-only Verified Pro badge on roughly 72 percent of providers (26 of 36) with its meaning stated plainly nearby and a fuller explanation on How it works, plus an explicit 'Demo: no reviews shown' placeholder slot on every provider detail page and an aggregate-rating placeholder where the summary rating would render. No fabricated review, rating, review count, license number, insurance or bonding badge, certification, or franchise mark anywhere.
  • Provider names use the surname-plus-trade convention (Maddox Plumbing, Brookline Electric, Whitley Heating and Air) vetted against recognizable trades brands, chains, and franchises; the full list is surfaced in the Phase 3A report. Calder Bay is a demo-fictitious city; service areas reference six fictitious neighbourhoods and the service-area maps are schematic hand-built SVG, not real geocoded data, real ZIP codes, or real boundaries.
  • The browse page renders the filter rail (category, service area, specialty, Verified Pro toggle) and the provider grid in a stated neutral order (alphabetical), with no sponsored or promoted tier. The For Pros page renders the supply-side proposition on a Deep harbor dark band with a demo-only List your business CTA in Trust blue. Demo-only labelling in Trust blue on every interactive surface (search, contact, request a quote, list your business, all filter and sort actions).
  • Browse-AI is not integrated and not referenced; the workup competitor review is the standard pattern-level audit. Tradepost is the same-shape divergence partner to the forthcoming vacation rental marketplace, which is the Browse-AI attended capstone.

Fails(7)

  • Intentional noindex and nofollow on the demo build (correct for a demo, flagged by the verifier across pages against a production-ready standard). Same not-a-defect-in-context the prior demos carry.
  • Canonical URL declares the production rampstack.co host while the build is served from localhost during the audit; cross-origin canonical mismatch is the localhost-vs-production artefact, not a real defect. Recurring across all pages.
  • Title tags and H1s on inner pages lean structural (Browse, How it works, For pros, Workup) rather than search-keyword-aligned. Judgment item for the showcase context; a live directory would target the city-and-trade terms explicitly.
  • Placeholder imagery state (on-palette cloud-slate-trustblue placeholder frames for provider work photos and the index thumbnail; inline line glyphs for category icons) flagged against a production photography standard; intentional pre-imagery state. Phase 3B replaces the placeholders per the brief's image-ready spine.
  • Logo-less type lockup; the title-case Public Sans 700 wordmark over Cloud is the type-led placeholder this batch ships with. The logo pass is a separate per-brand later dispatch.
  • Schematic, not geocoded, service-area maps (hand-built SVG with neighbourhood divisions, not real ZIP codes or boundaries); intentional honesty discipline, flagged against a production geocoded-map standard. Not a defect in context.
  • No fabricated review aggregates, ratings, sponsored placement, license numbers, or certifications (intentional honesty discipline, flagged against the field convention of surfacing post-contact trust currency). Not a defect in context.

Not assessable(6)

  • Core Web Vitals and page experience (no field data in a static-fetch audit).
  • robots.txt and XML sitemap content (single-page audit does not crawl).
  • Real provider data or CMS backend integration (none in this build by design; categories, providers, and city are static modules).
  • Real lead-handoff or contact backend (intentionally absent; the request-a-quote and contact CTAs are demo-only).
  • Real licensing or insurance verification API behind the Verified Pro badge (intentionally absent; the badge is Tradepost's own demo badge).
  • Mobile responsiveness past basic reflow at the audit viewport (separate device captures required).
See the full workupAll business demos