Workflow

Strategy Pipeline (Strategist)

The Strategist is your primary operator tool — a whole-portfolio allocator that proposes how every card in your collection should be routed across channels. You review the proposal, approve, and one click ships hundreds of cards to their assigned destinations with the right metadata.

What it does

Reads every card in your personal channel that's not already engaged elsewhere
Scores each card across multiple dimensions (price, recency, sport, comp confidence, sales velocity)
Routes each card to the recommended channel using configurable thresholds
Builds lots from the routed cards (city, team, player, set, sport groupings)
Renders the proposal in a 4-quadrant view (eBay / ToT / Showcase / Repack pools)
One click commits — every card lands on its target channel with theme metadata, transfer codes, and webhook fan-out

The macro presets

Preset	Behavior	When to use
MIX	Balanced default. Cards routed by score across all channels. Lots built where natural groupings exist.	Most weeks. Lets the engine decide.
STOREFRONT	Premium-first. High-value cards route to Storefront direct-buy. ToT gets mid-tier. Repacks absorb low-value.	You have a strong storefront and want it loaded with hero cards.
AGGRESSIVE PULL	Sub-$15 cards route as Pull-only singles (lots disabled). ToT gets max volume.	You're building Pull stack inventory for a marketing push.

💡 Presets are starting points

Each preset stamps a default config; every field is editable before commit. Think of presets as "give me a sane starting point" — then tune the thresholds for your shop's specifics.

The four quadrants

1. eBay pool

Cards scored as best-fit for eBay (typically: high comp confidence, mid-tier price band, broad buyer appeal). Default range: $0 - $15 individual, lots up to $75 total. Adjustable via ebay_min / ebay_max.

2. ThisOrThat pool

Cards scored for the marketplace games (singles + lots). Default range: $10 - $50 per card. Lots are built when 4+ cards share city/team/player/set theme.

thisorthat_make_lots: bool, default true — turn off to send only singles
thisorthat_lot_min: minimum total value for a lot to qualify ($15 default)
tot_target_singles: cap on singles after lots are built (null = no cap)
tot_target_lots: cap on lots

3. Showcase Breaks pool

Cards reserved for break-style sales. Operator picks a preset (Starter / Standard / Premium) and quantity. Strategist fills each break with a balanced card mix.

4. Repack pool

Sealed-pack candidates. Cards under tot_min_value with too little theme-density to lot (scattered teams, single-card-per-set) flow here. Operator picks pack templates and quantities.

The allocator engine

Lives at backend/services/strategist/allocator.js. The flow:

Score every card via backend/services/channel-scoring/index.js (returns recommended channel + confidence)
Filter to cards with valid pricing (asking_price or comp_value > 0)
Bucket by recommendation
Run buildLots() on the ToT bucket: city → team → player → set → sport priority
Run buildLots() on the eBay bucket separately (different sizing)
Apply target caps if set
Return four buckets + portfolio_economics rollup

The commit

Hits POST /api/curator/strategist/commit with this payload shape:

{
  channels: ['thisorthat', 'ebay', 'showcase', 'repack'],
  thisorthat: {
    singles: [{ card_id, asking_price, comp_value, ... }, ...],
    lots: [{
      kind: 'city',
      label: 'Dallas Multi-Sport Lot',
      card_ids: [12, 47, 89, ...],
      total_value: 84.50,
      theme_key: 'dallas',
      theme_label: 'Dallas',
      theme_sports: ['football', 'basketball'],
      theme_teams: ['Dallas Cowboys', 'Dallas Mavericks'],
    }, ...],
    spread: 0.25,
  },
  ebay: { singles: [...], lots: [...] },
  showcases: [{ template, card_ids, ... }, ...],
  repacks: [{ template, card_ids, ... }, ...],
  spread: 0.25,
  pull_singles_eligible: true,
  pull_lots_max_eligible: 5,
  flip_eligible_floor: 15,
}

The endpoint:

Validates — duplicate card_ids across groups → 400; cards already on a non-personal channel → 409
Generates a transfer code (e.g. ST-A7BX9KQR)
For each channel, calls the satellite's webhook (POST {satellite}/api/webhook/ingest)
Each satellite stages cards into its local schema AND auto-publishes Listings (since the latest update — see ToT app)
Inserts card_channels rows for every committed card with the appropriate channel slug
Returns a per-channel results summary with transfer codes + webhook ack status

Triage + Lot Builder — focused entry points

The Strategist is comprehensive. For day-to-day work, two narrower tools branch off it:

Triage — view personal-collection cards by price band, bulk-pick singles to commit to ToT
Lot Builder — propose city/team/player/set lots, bulk-commit to ToT with sub-$15 fallback math

Production gotchas

Pricing missing: cards without asking_price or comp_value are dropped from the allocation. Run a price audit + comp refresh first.
Lot value floor: lots whose total_value < 15 are skipped. Lot Builder shows the floor explicitly.
Sale-locks during commit: if a card is already in a Stripe checkout flow on Storefront when commit fires, the engagement fails for that one card and continues for the rest. The skipped card stays in personal.
Ship-from + Stripe must be configured: a successful commit creates listings on the satellite, but the satellite needs Stripe + Shippo working to actually settle sales. See the first-deploy checklist.

Code references

UI: frontend/src/pages/Strategist.jsx (2700 lines — comprehensive)
Allocator: backend/services/strategist/allocator.js
Lot builder: backend/services/strategist/lot-builder.js
Auto-allocator: backend/services/strategist/auto-allocator.js (preset-driven)
Routes: backend/routes/curator.routes.js (/strategist/allocate, /strategist/auto-allocate, /strategist/commit)
Channel scoring: backend/services/channel-scoring/index.js

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