WORK / CASE STUDY
Park Banter.
Camping alerts for national park families, run day to day by an agent named Hermes.
2026
public launch
24/7
availability watch
1
human approval gate
The problem
Campsites at popular national parks sell out in minutes, sometimes seconds. Families plan whole summers around a reservation window, then lose the site to whoever refreshed the page at the right moment. I am trying to take my own kids to every park in the system, so this is not a hypothetical for me.
What the agents do
The backend, FastAPI with Postgres and a task queue, watches campsite availability continuously and fires alerts by email and SMS the moment something opens. Hermes runs the daily operations from a Mac mini in my office and reports in over Telegram: what ran, what failed, what needs a decision. Penny drafts the newsletter that builds the audience before launch.
What I do
Strategy, positioning, and the approval gate. Nothing public ships without a written yes from me: not a newsletter, not a post, not a pricing change. For a brand aimed at families trusting us with their vacation, that gate matters more than speed.
What happened
The alert backend is built and live ahead of public launch in 2026. The interesting part is the operating model: this is the first business where an agent, not me, is the daily operator. Hermes runs the checklist. I run Hermes.