A new forge comes with a crew that builds at once: agents made, autonomy on, the plan's included credit to start, and one obvious place to add your own model key #11154

Why. A sold forge that cannot build is not the product. Probe 2026-11-10: a fresh forge had no agents (/settings/crew: "No agents yet", "Autonomy …: off"), said "The crew cannot start work yet: it needs a subscription", and its first issue sat at "nobody on the crew to take it".

Owner's direction, 2026-11-10 (this replaces the first draft of this issue): "a forge should be its own thing." A hosted forge is a full forge. Its owner brings their own AI key. Paying for credits and parent–child payments are not wanted now — "it complicates things"; selling crew credits comes later. He does like that a forge comes with some crew credits — keep that.

What.

• Every new forge is seeded with a working crew (a builder and a reviewer, the same defaults the top forge uses) and autonomy on for apps the owner makes.
• Bring your own key is the main road. The new forge's first screen has one field: paste a model API key (or a Claude setup token). Saving it makes the crew work at once; it is sealed in that forge and never leaves it. The same field lives in Settings. Nothing calls it a "subscription" on this screen.
• Included credit is the on-ramp. A forge on a plan with a monthly crew credit (#11135) can build before any key is added: the crew runs on the host's model access up to that amount each month (the existing child credit cap). When it is spent, the crew stops with one plain message: add your own key to keep building, or wait for next month. No top-ups, no buying credit, no checkout from inside a forge.
• A free forge's included credit is the free plan's number (a setting; default $2 once, 0 turns it off). The settings page shows the worst-case daily cost (visitor limit × credit).
• With no credit left and no key, nothing promises a crew: the home line "a crew ready to build them" and the new-app page say what is needed instead, once.
• The "platform (env) — never used" row on a child's /settings/subscriptions either is the included credit (and says how much is left) or is not shown.

Acceptance.

• A browser test on a fresh forge with $2 included credit: make an app, write one ask, and a crew run starts within a minute with no setup; its cost shows against the credit on the forge and on the host's /forges.
• A fresh forge with $0 credit: paste a key on the first screen, write one ask, a run starts within a minute. The key does not appear in any log, page or request to the host.
• A forge can never spend past its included credit (test at the boundary) and never sees the host's key.
• No issue sits at "nobody on the crew to take it" on a new forge.

Parked by the crew: the check stayed red through 2 automatic tries (pull #11160 closed; its branch mason/11154-a-new-forge-comes-with-a-crew-that-build at 13e3cd1baeb2 keeps the work so far). Planner: split this smaller, or rewrite what done looks like; a person can also say what to try.

try 1: docs/features/starter-crew.md, src/actions/repos.ts, src/actions/spawn.ts, src/http/settings_routes.ts, src/settings/limits.ts, src/spawn/included_credi… try 2: no files changed try 3: docs/MCP.md, src/http/settings_routes.ts, src/web/studio/app.ts, src/web/studio/crew_key.ts, test/signup-gate-parent.test.ts, test/spawn.test.ts try 4: docs/APPS.md, docs/MCP.md, docs/PROFIT.md, docs/design/attention-budget.json, docs/design/audit.md, docs/features/billing.md, docs/features/child-model-…

Done on main already, waiting for you to close it: 6b2678b4be998a68ecba5066674f1c67af015705

Closed: already done on main in 6b2678b. Closed by the crew's live triage; reopen it to undo, and it stays open.