Reconcile the pending doc edits with the creator's actual ruling, and close the
revenue-share question that was blocking the monthly price.
Verified from the App Developer Agreement v8.10 PDF itself (downloaded and
text-extracted, not a search excerpt). Section 6(b) has only three tiers:
6(b)(i) 15% for Apps and their In-App Products *not listed in* 6(b)(iii);
6(b)(ii) 12% Games-only; 6(b)(iii) 30% for Xbox console apps/games, Xbox
non-subscription IAP, and Windows 8/Phone 8. LlamaCasty is a Windows PC App,
so 6(b)(i) governs BOTH tiers -- there is no subscription surcharge. The
agreement's own changelog (v8.0, Oct 26 2017) states it outright: "implement
the 85/15 revenue share for non-Game subscriptions."
=> $10/mo nets $8.50 (~$102/yr); $400 lifetime nets $340.
Also confirmed: the 15% applies after VAT/GST (Net Receipts definition),
payouts are monthly above a $50 threshold, and no better small-indie rate
exists in the standard terms.
Creator ruling recorded: $10/mo subscription or $400 lifetime, no annual, no
.99. This supersedes the 2026-09-21 one-time $29 -> $49 model.
Two obligations ADA 6(h) attaches to the recurring tier, recorded because they
change its risk profile and are the reason lifetime is the hedge: we must
fulfil the subscription for the entire period as marketed (on breach Microsoft
may refund the full amount plus taxes in its sole discretion), and raising the
price disables auto-renew -- so $10 is effectively locked for the product's life.
Stale facts fixed in the same change rather than appended:
- research-store-certification.md: IARC was 11.11.1/11.11.2 in one table and
10.11.1 in another; corrected to 10.11.x.
- research-store-certification.md: policy 10.8.1/10.8.2 still asserted "Polar
explicitly permitted" and "tick the third-party purchase box". Void now that
Store IAP is the route and Polar is being torn down.
- task-48: the working YouTube demo account (10.3.1) was accidentally dropped
from the certification list during the Store-IAP edit. Restored -- a reviewer
cannot use the app without one.
- MyMistakes.md: the verified-fact-vs-decided-outcome lesson now closes its
loop (the creator did rule the way the research pointed), and records the
over-correction that followed.
Docs-only. No code, no build, no tests.
Creator ruling 2026-09-27. Criteria, verbatim: "zero headaches, minimal
maintenance (for me) while still providing accountability and a reasonably
easy upgrade flow." Route A is the only combination where all four are solved
by handing the work to Microsoft rather than to a certificate vendor: $0/yr,
no certificate, no HSM, no annual renewal, no SmartScreen ramp — plus Store
auto-update, Store-side payments/entitlements/refunds/support, and Microsoft
review as the accountability layer.
The rejected options and their reasons stay in research-store-certification.md
§3 so a later session reads the ruling instead of re-deriving it.
What this deletes:
- The entire licensing backend. PolarLicenseService, PolarLicense,
MainViewModel.License.cs (PremiumUrl, customer portal, the OfflineGracePeriod
= 14 days subscription-era artifact, renewal/lapse copy) and the wrong
"Polar unlocks alerts" string all become dead code. IsPremium is derived from
the Store entitlement instead of an HTTP call, which also removes the whole
"network flaky -> app thinks I'm expired" bug class.
- Velopack, the update URL, and the self-hosted droplet — the Store updates.
- Distribution.md's premise: Polar as the distribution backbone, Polar file
hosting, and code signing as our problem. The IP-protection sections (1, 5,
6, 7) still stand and the build-posture ceiling is unchanged.
What does NOT change: the entitlement. Free gets everything; the branding
flash stays the only paid delta. Store IAP changes how IsPremium is obtained,
never what it gates.
Still open, deliberately: the price. The Store revenue share is unverified (do
not assume a percentage), and MONETIZATION.md's $29 -> $49 one-time decision is
re-opened against a fresh instinct toward ~$99/yr. No price encoded yet.
The first code unit is unchanged: bundle ffmpeg (TASK 48 item 1). That clears
the one hard certification gate and fixes a real user-facing 404.
MARCOM.md and MONETIZATION.md were edited too but are gitignored by design, so
those changes stayed local.
The distribution answer existed only in conversation, so every session re-derived
it. It is now in the map, and the route decision is explicitly parked as the
creator's.
new TASKS/research-store-certification.md — Store Policies 7.20 + MSIX packaging:
which policies bind, which don't (and why), cert economics, camera/mic gating
layers, YouTube age + COPPA, the 11.12 UGC judgment call.
Two real defects surfaced, neither fixed (docs-only unit):
- FfmpegLocator downloads an unsigned exe from GitHub and runs it. That is
policy 10.2.2 (dynamic code inclusion) verbatim, and it is the root cause of
the 2026-09-01 404 — the pin aged out of BtbN's 14-day retention on the
creator's first real recording attempt. -> TASK 48 item 1, not
Store-conditional.
- Distribution.md:318 recommended a $400+/yr EV cert for a SmartScreen bypass
Microsoft removed in March 2024. Fixed; had it shipped it would have cost
$400+/yr to buy what $150 buys.
Also new: TASKS/task-48 (checklist, carved out of TASK 36 item 6) and
TASKS/task-49 (chat profanity filter, not blocked). ai.md gains the durable
invariants — full trust or recording breaks silently, chat is rendered never
stored — plus a correction to the FFmpeg locator section. MyMistakes.md records
the lesson: a policy citation is a claim about scope, not just text.
MARCOM.md got the privacy-copy guard but is gitignored by design, so that edit
stays local and did not travel here.