TB
2026 OPERATIONS

Thunder Bowl field guide

PIP'S PRIVATE SCREEN

Operate the command center

  1. Sign in before leaving home. A successful online sign-in saves an offline verifier for this laptop.
  2. Choose the sale source at the top. Leave Auctioneer feed selected while the auctioneer is recording. Switch to Manual backup only when you must enter winning sales yourself.
  3. Find a decision in seconds. Type a player name, team, or position; the same typo-tolerant ranked search is used by the command center, keeper picker, and auctioneer console. Position and Sort stay visible. Open Filters for bye week, rookie/veteran status, tier, Target/Avoid tags, and saved news/injury attention. Every active filter is named below the controls with one Clear filters button, and Escape clears the entire set. Age and rookie metadata are display/filter evidence only and never change VBD, Market, or Max.
  4. Use the Live Bid HUD. During practice its current bid follows the live bid automatically. During a manual auction, enter the current bid or tap +/−. Read BID / HOLD / PASS, chance at your hard stop, Next bid, Your maximum, cash leverage, roster-after-win safety, and best alternative together without scrolling.
  5. Read the small value verdict. BARGAIN means intrinsic roster value is meaningfully above the live Thunder Bowl market; FAIR means they are close; WAIT means the market is charging more than the intrinsic value; TIER SAVE means a premium can be justified only because this is the final tier option and the roster simulation says the remaining build is safe. It never replaces BID/HOLD/PASS or raises Your maximum.
  6. Protect the whole roster. The roster plan runs 192 market and position-shock simulations after every confirmed sale or correction. “Legal” is the chance your caps and cash can still complete the required Week 1 starters; “Strong” is the chance the best attainable starter portfolio retains at least 85% of the currently available positional ceiling. This can never raise VBD, Market, or a hard stop.
  7. Use the six budget lanes. QB/RB/WR/TE/K/DST dollar lanes are based on actual Thunder Bowl position spending and historical final-roster depth. They rebalance with your cash and roster; yellow or red lanes identify thin remaining paths.
  8. Watch for handcuff and stack demand. The compact ownership strip names managers who already roster either a same-team/same-position handcuff or a same-team QB–WR/TE stack partner. Treat it as a warning that the manager may bid emotionally for the pairing; it never raises VBD or Your maximum.
  9. Browse without losing the auction. If you inspect a different player during an active practice bid, a BROWSING ONLY banner names the actual live player and bid. Press Return to live player before deciding.
  10. Do not miss a closing tier. A compact warning appears in the Live Bid HUD when only two players remain, then turns red for the final player. Click the warning to see the complete tier, NFL teams, byes, projections, and ownership without leaving the bidding workflow.
  11. Never cross the hard stop. A closing tier, Target tag, win probability, or roster simulation can explain urgency, but none overrides Your maximum.
  12. Protect the lineup. A yellow bye warning appears when the candidate shares a bye with anyone already on Dogs of War. It is a warning—not an automatic veto—so an exceptional value can still win.
  13. Use the nomination assistant. When Dogs of War is on the clock, choose among DRAIN RIVAL, FLOAT CHALK, and SECURE TARGET plays ranked over the existing rival willingness-to-pay forecast. Clicking only loads the player; it never nominates automatically.
  14. Read rival WTP as a range, not a promise. The forecast now uses each owner's validated winning purchases across ten usable auction seasons, with former team names joined explicitly and keeper/post-draft rows removed. The purchase/season count and manager-signal percentage show how much evidence survived shrinkage; cash, roster need, comparable players, and live runner-up evidence still matter more than an old habit.
  15. Scan every team without leaving the player. At the bottom of Auction forecast, the 3×4 team grid shows all 12 cash balances, the legal maximum for the currently selected position, and QB/RB/WR/TE/K/DST counts. Select a team for its current keeper/auction roster, then select a player for that NFL team's saved Footballguys position depth chart. Both popouts close immediately when you click outside them; this evidence is private and never changes value.
  16. Keep research one key away. The full evidence card and dated source block stay collapsed during bidding. Press ? to inspect tiers, source disagreement, schedule evidence, and the asset stat line behind the points.
  17. Treat position runs as a warning. HOT/WARM requires at least four confirmed sales and never fires from one sale. Historical continuation precision was too weak to grant it VBD or bid-limit authority, so WATCH means notice the pattern—not pay more automatically.
  18. Open private intelligence in place. A red ! means saved Footballguys, CBS, or RotoWire news is available. Right-click the player for that news, injury/role evidence, depth-chart research, Target/Avoid tags, personal prices, and notes.
  19. Use the keyboard under pressure. Command-K focuses search; B opens your personal maximum; Enter records a completed manual sale; N loads the best nomination play; Space advances to the next visible player; ? toggles full evidence; Command-Z undoes the last manual sale; Escape clears filters.
  20. Turn on Pro mode after rehearsal. It removes repeated explanatory copy but never removes warnings, hard stops, provenance, or safety checks.
  21. Correct the exact last sale. In Manual backup the correction button names the player and price, previews the team before confirmation, and appends a void event. The original sale remains in full history.
  22. Capture the runner-up with one choice. After a real confirmed auction sale, the private command center briefly asks who finished second. Choose the team and it saves immediately, or press Not sure; the winner is never offered. The prompt closes after 30 seconds, never appears on the auctioneer or Draft Board, and every choice remains editable in Admin & data → Auction intelligence log. Replay and auto-auction practice deliberately do not collect this evidence.
  23. Reset safely after testing. In Admin & data → Clear all player placements, review the current keeper/drafted-player count, choose a reason, and type CLEAR ALL PLACEMENTS. Thunder Bowl downloads a recovery bundle and archives the audit ledger before clearing every keeper, drafted player, cap trade, pass, and nomination. Projections, news, targets, avoids, notes, and personal prices remain.
  24. Keep a paper or fillable fallback. In Admin & data → Top-200 emergency auction sheet, download the eight-page landscape PDF after keepers are final and again on draft morning. Choose value order for fast price decisions or alphabetical order for fast name lookup. Both versions contain editable winning-team and price fields, but they also print cleanly. Their ranking and dollar column always use a clean pre-auction room; any existing keeper or sale is merely prefilled in the entry fields. Keep a printout beside the laptop for a total device failure.
  25. Hand off the finished auction cleanly. After the final sale, use Admin & data → CBS Auction Import CSV. It exports every active rostered player, including keepers, with exactly player_name,nfl_team,position,fantasy_team,auction_price,player_id,contract_year. Contract year is blank for auction purchases and 1–3 for keepers; voided records are excluded. Any missing, duplicated, or mismatched player blocks the file and names the problem; use the separate full draft-history export for auditing and future modeling.

KEEPER SEASON

Model first; publish deliberately

  1. Use Prediction sandbox for experiments. Keeper choices, passes, trades, cap movement, and recalculated auction values stay private on this laptop.
  2. Follow the 1–12 / 1–12 timeline. A team may keep zero, one, or two players. Passing closes only that turn; the other round remains available.
  3. Record quickly. Select the team evidence table and double-click an eligible player when that team is on the clock, or use the searchable keeper form.
  4. Test complete trade packages. One transaction may include cap dollars, multiple players in either direction, or a $0 player swap. Contract years travel with the player.
  5. Undo freely in the sandbox. Use Undo last setup action or reset the sandbox. When the entire scenario becomes real, select Review & sync sandbox, verify every keeper/trade/pass in the protected review, and publish the complete sequence once. The sandbox remains as a private backup.
  6. Finalize the shared set once. In Official ledger, verify 24 of 24 turns and 24 active keepers, then select Lock current set as final. That cloud set becomes the default on every computer. The auctioneer can view it but cannot edit, undo, restore, or reconcile keepers. If the organizer must correct something, use Enable owner corrections in this private page; finish correction mode immediately afterward.
  7. Recover a stale tab without losing predictions. If the app says this tab belongs to an archived rehearsal, select Load current cloud ledger on the Keeper strategy page. The app downloads the prior official ledger, loads the current generation, and leaves the local prediction sandbox untouched. Then review and sync the sandbox.

DRAFT-DAY QUICK GUIDE

Run the auction

  1. Sign in separately. Use the auctioneer access number, open the projector, and complete Draft-day check.
  2. Choose the nominee. Search and explicitly select the player. The projector shows UP FOR BID and pauses the nomination clock.
  3. Record the winner. Choose the team, enter the whole-dollar price, and review the cap/legal preview. An illegal purchase disables the final button and displays that team's maximum; the server independently enforces the same rule as a second backstop.
  4. Clear a mistake before sale. Press Clear or Escape. All entry fields and the projector's UP FOR BID popout disappear; recorded history is untouched.
  5. Shorten late rounds. Use Clock length to choose 2:00, 1:30, 1:00, 0:45, or 0:30. The selected length remains in effect for Reset and later sales.
  6. Correct auction sales later. Use Recent sales for quick Edit/Undo or Assignment history for any older auction purchase. Undo requires a second confirmation and remains restorable. Final keeper rows are labeled OWNER LOCKED and are changed only in Pip's private Command Center.

READ-ONLY LEAGUE VIEW

Open the Draft Board

  1. Open /thunder-bowl/draft-board/ from the Thunder Bowl card on Pip's Projects.
  2. Enter the separate Draft Board code. Successful sign-in opens the live board; it cannot record or correct anything.
  3. Leave the page open. It updates team cash, legal maximums, nominations, keepers, purchases, positions, and the shared clock automatically.
  4. Click any team header to audit that team's public salary ledger. The running balance shows bonuses, trades, keepers, and auction purchases; close it with the ×, Escape, or a click outside the box.
  5. If the connection fails, the last sanitized snapshot stays visible and a warning appears. Never use the public board as a second ledger.

IN-SEASON WEEKLY GUIDE

Run the weekly GM plan

  1. Open /thunder-bowl/season/ from In-season GM on the existing Thunder Bowl card and use Pip's private access code.
  2. On Tuesday morning, check the week, READY/PARTIAL/STALE state, and every source timestamp before using the lineup. The scheduled Tuesday job downloads Footballguys component-stat projections, applies Thunder Bowl scoring, and archives the first successful plan; later updates do not rewrite that archive.
  3. Install or update the one-time Data Helper from the setup panel, then choose Update everything after CBS waivers, trades, roster moves, or important injury news. The helper reads authenticated CBS, Footballguys, FantasyPros, and PFF weekly component-stat tables only when asked; Thunder Bowl scores the raw categories itself, then refreshes injuries, news, and IR targets.
  4. A legal Thunder Bowl roster has the eight required starters—1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 K, and 1 DST—and zero to six backups. The advisor does not require every team to carry 14 players.
  5. If the auction is still being entered, the update succeeds and shows the exact roster-slot progress. Dogs of War's complete legal lineup and the public weekly reports still update, while waiver/free-agent and trade advice remain blocked until all 12 CBS base rosters are complete.
  6. Open Evidence before acting on a close start/sit, waiver, trade, or IR-stash decision. Manual CBS JSON and Footballguys CSV imports under Advanced recovery tools are fallback paths only; missing rows remain missing and are never changed to zero.
  7. For waivers, submit only the displayed CBS-confirmed add with its paired legal drop. For trades, confirm salary, contract, deadline, and commissioner treatment in CBS before sending the copied proposal.
  8. Review Week watch throughout the week for every detected manager add/drop, the current injury report, and strong IR/PUP players who may be current-season return candidates or next-season keeper stashes. Return dates are deliberately not guessed.

BEFORE LEAVING FOR THE AUCTION

Run the departure gate

  1. Load the final governed projection pack. Then refresh the private weekly-asset bundle for the complete source-backed identity spine; approved supplemental identities retain their governed bye-aware fallback. The intake must report zero changes to signed season projections. The private value engine then applies the validated 1.20 division / 1.50 playoff policy automatically.
  2. Press Promote & lock this final pack. The server reruns the complete release gate, pins the exact pack bytes, stamps the promotion time, refreshes the offline copy, and clears the practice-pack blocker. If any gate fails, the practice pack remains unchanged.
  3. In Admin & data, capture all player intelligence so injury, Footballguys news/depth-chart, CBS, and RotoWire evidence is sealed for offline use.
  4. Download a recovery bundle and any private personal-board JSON that the readiness card requests. Then download the value-ranked and alphabetical Top-200 emergency auction sheets; verify that both have eight landscape pages and editable team/price fields. Print at least the value-ranked copy.
  5. Open the auctioneer console and Draft Board once, then run Run departure check. Leave only after blockers are cleared; warnings explain optional or repeatable safeguards.
  6. The pack-pinned automatic rehearsal is the technical evidence. The seven-item physical rehearsal is optional and may be sealed only after those actions were actually performed.

TUTORIAL 1

Load team logos

  1. Prepare images. Prefer transparent square SVG files; PNG also works. Keep each under about 200 KB.
  2. Name by team ID. Examples: orange-crush.svg and dogs-of-war.png.
  3. Place in public assets. Put them under public/team-logos/.
  4. Add the public URL. Add logoUrl: "/thunder-bowl/team-logos/orange-crush.svg" to the matching sanitized team record.
  5. Verify. Open the image URL directly, then inspect the board at the actual projector resolution.

TUTORIAL 2

Normal Wi-Fi setup

  1. Put both computers on the same reliable private Wi-Fi—not a guest network.
  2. Open the normal deployed Thunder Bowl URLs. Cloud synchronization does not require the computers to see each other directly.
  3. Use the private command-center login on your computer and the separate auctioneer login on the auctioneer computer.
  4. Open the projector and run Draft-day check. If you record a $1 test sale, do it only in a named rehearsal and archive/reset that rehearsal afterward.
  5. Keep a charged phone ready as the simple hotspot fallback.

ACTUAL OUTAGE PLAYBOOK

When the internet goes down

The private command center is the only writable offline authority. The auctioneer console intentionally becomes read-only, and the Draft Board keeps its last sanitized snapshot.

  1. Stop entering sales on the auctioneer computer when it shows OFFLINE — RECORDING DISABLED.
  2. On Pip's already-unlocked command center, switch to Manual backup and record each winning sale locally.
  3. Keep announcing rosters and prices while the projector displays its last confirmed snapshot. Paper is an emergency visual note only, never a competing ledger.
  4. When internet access returns, wait for Online and Cloud synced. The append-only event merge is idempotent and preserves queued corrections.
  5. Confirm the auctioneer and Draft Board match the command center, then switch back to Auctioneer feed.