Non-compete doctrine

For humans, agents, and future contributors. Violating this is a product bug.

Last updated: 2026-08-13

Two products, one founder, zero rivalry

	Dutch Fluency (DFL)	The Dutch Directory (TDD)
Job	Teach, practice, certify	Map, judge, shortlist the market
Learner state	Yes (XP, progress, certificates)	No
Curriculum / grading	Yes	Never
Market schools / tutors / podcasts	Not the system of record	System of record
MCP	Practice + DFL content discovery	Market intelligence only
Monetization	Subscriptions, products	Affiliate (disclosed), B2B embeds, data later

Dutch Fluency is the gym. The Dutch Directory is the map and the referee.

Hard rules (never break)

1. TDD does not become a practice product. No lesson engines, no XP, no CEFR certificates issued by TDD, no sentence grading, no STT/TTS practice loops.
2. TDD does not store learner progress. Path answers and email preferences only. No "completed lesson 12."
3. TDD does not replace Preply/italki booking. We shortlist and deep-link with disclosed affiliate links.
4. When practice is the next step, prefer deep-linking to Dutch Fluency (or a school), with at least two non-DFL alternatives shown whenever a DFL product appears in a shortlist.
5. Conflict ledger is public. Every shortlist that includes a DFL-owned listing records why, and which alternatives were shown (/api/v1/conflict-ledger).
6. No DFL JWT, no DFL account gate on TDD MCP. TDD MCP is anonymous (and optional API key for rate limits only). Practice stays on mcp.dutchfluency.com.
7. Discovery of DFL media stays on dfl-discovery-mcp. TDD does not re-index DFL private content.
8. Editorial bar is independent. Verified Pro and fit notes are TDD rules, not platform self-labels and not "DFL partners only."

Allowed connections (encouraged)

• Path OS / weekly picks may recommend practice on Dutch Fluency as one step among external resources.
• DFL product UI may deep-link to TDD shortlists ("external speaking practice") without rebuilding a school index.
• Agents may call both MCPs: TDD for where, DFL grammar for how.
• JSON-LD and the open Learning Graph schema may list DFL products as normal Provider nodes with publisher: dutch_fluency and disclosure.

Forbidden "clever" ideas

• Ranking DFL always #1 without alternatives.
• Moving grammar MCP tools into TDD MCP "for convenience."
• Building a second dashboard that tracks study streaks on TDD.
• Scraping DFL private learner data into the market graph.

One-sentence test

If this feature would still make sense if Dutch Fluency did not exist, it can live on TDD. If it only makes sense as doing the learning, it belongs on Dutch Fluency.

Contact

Doctrine questions: [email protected]
Security: [email protected]