The problem set
Between 2023 and 2025 the cities from Shoreline to Lynnwood rewrote their zoning for middle housing and light rail. Land values moved. Permit desks didn't grow. The paper now changes faster than the people who rely on it can read it.
- The record is scattered. Codes sit with the city, packets with the district, permits in an archive, awards with the state. Different governments, and none of them will call you.
- Nobody reads it in time. Problems surface in escrow, or three months into a stalled review, or at the water district counter. By then the cheap fixes are gone.
- The desks are thin. Review queues got longer while values went up. The person who used to catch this retired and wasn't replaced.
AGT-01 / Permit navigator / for the infill builder
Greenlight
From redline to greenlight.
A fourplex that has sat in review since spring costs about $15,600 a month in interest, taxes and rent that isn't coming in. The city can't say what's wrong, because the counter is three people short and eleven weeks behind. Greenlight reads all four cities' codes daily, checks the submittal against them first, and tracks every stage after.
3+ months resubmitting blind→days, stage-tracked
AGT-02 / Canopy code agent / for the view homeowner
Overstory.
The tree service that reads the code.
Edmonds is tightening its tree code again. The interim rule protects every tree over 30 inches through April 2027, and the permanent code is still being written. The rules will move again. Cut the wrong fir and the fine goes to the homeowner, not the crew. Overstory prices each cut against the code in force that day and files the permit.
3 visits, a week, mystery price→photos in, same day
AGT-03 / Records reconciler / for the listing agent
Rectify.
Unpermitted work, made right.
On day 21 of escrow, the buyer's inspector finds a finished basement the city has no record of. That is $10,000 to $23,000 of leverage, and it belongs to whoever found it. Rectify compares the permit archive to the house as built, before the listing goes up.
2–3 wks, found mid-escrow→48 hrs, pre-list
AGT-04 / District monitor / for the land buyer
Tapline_
A parcel can be zoned, financed, and still unbuildable.
The parcel is under contract and nobody has checked the sewer district behind it. Districts are separate governments under RCW Title 57, and they don't have to announce anything. Tapline reads eight purveyors' board packets each cycle and ties what it finds to parcels.
weeks of calls — or never→flagged before closing
AGT-05 / Retainage indexer / for the public-works contractor
Retained.
Find the money the state is holding.
A city job that finished in February can still be waiting on its money in August, because an Affidavit of Wages Paid never got filed. Around $2.07 million sits frozen statewide. Retained indexes every small-works award in Washington and files the closeout.
months of "we'll get to it"→filed in days, $500 flat
AGT-06 / Feasibility examiner / for the lot owner
Reissue²
Every building gets one set of drawings. The good ones earn a second.
Washington rewrote what a residential lot can hold. Two ADUs on any lot, four units in the bigger cities, lot splits statewide. Edmonds went from 3 DADU applications in 2024 to 40 in 2025, and most owners still learn what their lot allows after the design money is spent. Reissue reads the rules city by city and answers first: a $95 snapshot, then a $950 Feasibility Brief in about a week. A "no" is a finding it's paid to deliver.
design dollars spent to hear no→$95 answer, first
Where this goes
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Every record gets a reader.
Cities, districts and agencies have to publish these documents. Almost no one reads them. A reader that never stops is worth more than a consultant who visits quarterly.
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The expensive part was never judgment.
The cost was always the reading. Counter visits, records requests, hours no one billed. Once the reading runs continuously, a two-week job takes an afternoon and a flat fee makes sense.
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The suite compounds.
Six agents share one region's paper. When one catches a code amendment, another reprices a quote and a third rescores a parcel. Every record added sharpens all of them.
House rule: every agent runs with a human in the loop. The agent reads and flags. A person makes the call.
If your pain point isn't listed, it probably has a record too.
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