sulla — agent
$ sulla init --project acme
Scanning project structure...
Found 847 files, 12 services
✓ Agent initialized
$ sulla plan "add auth"
Generating execution plan...
✓ 14 tasks queued
docker-stack — build
$ docker compose up -d
Creating nginx_1 ... done
Creating php-fpm_1 ... done
Creating waf_1 ... done
Creating siem_1 ... done
✓ Stack healthy on :443
protocol-ci — deploy
$ git push origin main
Running pipeline...
Lint .......... pass
Test .......... pass
Build ......... pass
✓ Deployed to production
launchpad — saas starter
$ launchpad new my-saas
Scaffolding: Laravel 11
Modules: auth, billing, teams
Ready: production-grade
✓ SaaS scaffold complete

We Integrate AI
Into Your Business

Full-stack AI specialists bridging advanced tech to your real-world operations—end-to-end, SOC 2 ready, and built to scale.

Scroll
Merchant Protocol LLC · Coeur d’Alene, ID · Founded 2008 merchantprotocol.com jonathon@merchantprotocol.com
Act I — Manifesto

We build and deploy reliable, custom AI software that integrates deeply into your Agency, SaaS, e-commerce, or enterprise operations—so you can serve customers smarter, automate lead generation and sales outreach, handle support at scale, and drive real revenue growth.

We Are AI Engineers
This Is What We Do

Every day, business owners tell us the same thing: “I want AI connected to my tools—my CRM, email, support tickets, e-commerce platform, databases—so it can automate the repetitive stuff, qualify leads faster, respond to customers 24/7, and free me up to grow.” They want something like supercharged Zapier or Make.com, but with actual intelligence: AI that understands context, makes decisions, and acts autonomously across their stack.

The reality? Most “AI experts” out there are just kids with ChatGPT prompts who slap together basic chatbots or copy-paste scripts. Business owners cycle through yet another agency every month—first marketing flakes, now AI flakes—chasing promises that never deliver reliable, production-grade results.

We get how frustrating that is in an economy full of influencers and creators hyping ideas they barely understand, just for views and affiliate clicks.

“That’s exactly why we do things differently.”

We release a ton of open-source infrastructure (end-to-end systems, frameworks, and tools) so you can see our work transparently—no black boxes, no hidden sauce, no failed promises. If you have the bandwidth and want to implement yourself, jump into our premium support community—we’ll guide you step-by-step.

For busy owners who just want results without the DIY hassle, we deliver custom, full-stack AI deployments: SOC 2-ready, secure integrations that plug into your existing tools and workflows. We handle the heavy lifting so you get fast, reliable automation tailored to your business.

Specifically, here’s what we specialize in and deliver:

Intelligent Customer Service Automation — AI agents that handle inquiries, troubleshoot issues, escalate when needed, and provide personalized support 24/7, reducing tickets and boosting satisfaction (integrated with your helpdesk, chat, email, etc.).

Lead Generation & Outreach Automation — AI-powered systems that find, qualify, and nurture leads; personalize cold outreach at scale; book meetings; and follow up intelligently—without sounding robotic or spammy.

Sales & Revenue Automation — Automate follow-ups, proposal generation, pricing personalization, upselling, and pipeline management to close deals faster and increase average order value.

Workflow & Operations Integrations — Connect AI across your full stack (CRMs like Salesforce/HubSpot, e-commerce like Shopify, accounting, Slack/Teams, custom APIs) so it automates multi-step processes, makes decisions, and runs like an extra team member—secure, scalable, and compliant.

We don’t bolt on superficial AI features. We build robust, production-ready systems that solve real problems and deliver measurable ROI: lower costs, higher revenue, better customer experience.

If you’re tired of hype and ready for trustworthy AI that actually works for your business—whether you want to build on our open source or have us deploy it custom—let’s talk. Book a call, and we’ll map out exactly how we can automate the parts draining your time and money.

American Express
Body Glove
H&M
Papa Murphy's
Relief Factor
Alien Gear Holsters
Five Star Marketing
Launchpad
// Flagship Product

We Have Engineered
the Way AI Thinks

Our connections aren’t like Zapier or Make. There’s no configuration. There’s nothing to babysit. Our connections are neural nodes within the AI brain—the AI is the one making the decisions, and you’re just telling it what kind of decisions you want it to make. The AI takes in all of the data, processes it, and makes the calls.

Flagship

Your AI Agent,
On Your Terms

We understand that as a business owner you can’t just let an AI run wild inside your business. You can’t just connect it up to ChatGPT and have confidence that it’s going to do what you need it to do. You’ve engineered specific systems—that’s why your business is a success—and you can’t just open it up to an AI to break everything. That’s why we’ve built our workflow the way we have. Our system makes it possible for you to pull AI into your business and know that it will reliably and consistently perform the exact tasks you’ve designed.

  • Simple UI for designing complex AI workflows
  • 300+ integrations—and builds its own on the fly
  • Self-trains on conversations to improve over time
  • Train on your business docs for smarter customer answers
  • Create specialized agents for specific tasks across your org
>_ Get Started — Book a Call
Integrations

More Than 300+ Integrations
Automate Anything.

No need to map data fields, fight configurations and monitor when they break.
The AI makes the call and process the data without you ever having to configure anything.

Open Source

Built in the Open,
Trusted by Production

Protocol CI/CD is the fastest way to get your app live and keep it running. One command and your site is deployed, secured, and monitored—no DevOps team required. It handles the security, the compliance paperwork, and the server management so you never have to think about it. Your business stays online, stays protected, and you get to focus on what actually makes you money.

  • Deploy with one command—no DevOps team required
  • Security, compliance, and monitoring handled automatically
  • SOC 2 Type II audit-ready out of the box
  • Your business stays online and protected 24/7
  • Open source—you own your stack completely
  • Hardened by real-world usage and community audits
protocol — start
$ protocol deploy 'v1.2.0'
 
[protocol] Scanning codebase......... OK
[protocol] Infrastructure provision.. OK
[protocol] Container build & start.. OK
[protocol] Security audit........... PASS
[protocol] SOC 2 compliance......... PASS
[protocol] Health checks............ PASS
 
✓ Deployment complete. All systems operational.
Environment production
Strategy release (7b2c16d)
Secrets encrypted
Containers 1/1 running
Watchers release watcher running
Crontab installed
Completed in 14.2s
 
$
Get Started

Meet the Open Stack

Five products. One ecosystem. Hover to explore each layer of infrastructure.

protocol-cicd
Protocol CI/CD
Zero-config continuous integration and deployment. Push to main and your code is live in minutes. Lint, test, build, deploy—all automated.
$ git push origin main
Pipeline triggered...
Stage 1/4: lint .... pass
Stage 2/4: test .... pass
Stage 3/4: build ... pass
Stage 4/4: deploy .. pass
CI/CD Zero Config Auto Deploy
docker-containers
Docker Containers
Production-grade Ubuntu 24.04 container with Nginx, PHP 8.2-FPM, ModSecurity WAF, and Wazuh SIEM. SOC 2 Type II compliant out of the box.
$ docker compose up -d
nginx ........... healthy
php-fpm ......... healthy
modsecurity ..... active
wazuh-agent ..... active
Ubuntu 24.04 Nginx PHP 8.2 SOC 2
launchpad
Launchpad
Laravel SaaS Starter Kit with authentication, billing, team management, and admin dashboards baked in. Go from idea to production-ready SaaS in hours.
$ launchpad new my-saas
Framework: Laravel 11
Modules: auth, billing, teams
Admin: dashboard ready
Status: production-grade
Laravel SaaS Starter Full Stack
consentguard
ConsentGuard
Drop-in privacy consent management. GDPR, CCPA, and ePrivacy compliant. One script tag, full compliance. Customizable banners and preference centers.
$ consentguard status
Regions: EU, US, UK, CA
Consent rate: 97.4%
Violations: 0
Last audit: 2 days ago
GDPR CCPA Privacy
sulla-desktop
Sulla Desktop
Easy AI workflow orchestration with a simple UI. 300+ integrations, self-training on your conversations, and specialized agents for every task in your org.
$ sulla train --docs ./knowledge-base
Indexing 2,847 documents...
Integrations: 312 active
Agents: 8 specialized
✓ Self-training complete
300+ Integrations Self-Training AI Agents
Feature Merchant Protocol · Issue XVIII · Page 03 03
Feature Article

How We Use AI to
Blitzscale Productivity
and Profit

By Jonathon Byrdziak · 12 min read · Coeur d’Alene, ID

I bet you've never heard the term "context collapse"... but if you've ever tried running an AI agent for more than a couple days, you've almost certainly felt it.

One minute your agent is crushing it—following instructions perfectly, making smart calls, getting real work done. The next? It just... breaks. For no obvious reason. It stops taking action, starts hallucinating nonsense, ignores rules it was nailing yesterday, or flat-out freezes up like it's drunk or suddenly stupid. You tweak the prompt, restart the session, nothing helps. The whole thing collapses into a useless mess.

This isn't random bad luck—it's a real limitation of how today's AI agents and large language models actually work. The AI has hard limits. This is why even the most powerful models flake out on sustained, real-world tasks.

It happens when you give the AI too much at once—too many instructions, too many tools to choose from, too big a prompt, too much history piling up. The model gets overwhelmed, can't decide which path to take, so it falls back to its raw, untrained instincts. One tiny straw breaks the camel's back, and suddenly nothing works anymore. It doesn't just pause; it unravels. Hallucinations kick in, consistency vanishes, productivity dies.

And it hits at the worst possible time. You've invested hours (or days) training it, adding skills, seeing real results... then bam, 3 to 7 days in, it stops being productive. Stops being creative. Stops doing anything useful.

You're left staring at your screen thinking: How are all these influencers getting their bots to do incredible things while mine can't even stay awake?

The dirty secret? Those flashy demos are usually one-trick ponies—simple, single-task setups shown off in a fresh session. They're not running real, ongoing business workflows like you are. When you try for actual productivity—day-after-day automation, complex decisions, long-running tasks—the collapse happens fast. That's the big, unspoken problem with AI agents today: getting tangible, sustained productivity out of them is brutally hard.

We refused to live with that.
So we built something that actually fixes it.

Instead of one big, fragile agent trying to juggle everything (and inevitably collapsing under the load), we use a mixture of agents: a team of smaller, specialized sub-agents, each laser-focused on one thing, all coordinated by a single primary orchestration agent that you talk to directly. Your orchestration agent acts like your personal chief of staff—it decides what needs doing and delegates to the right specialist without overwhelming itself or any single piece.

But we didn't stop at multi-agent basics. We went further than almost anyone else has dared.

While most in the AI world cling to "pure AI" and hope the model figures everything out, we did what feels like heresy in some circles: we blended rock-solid, tried-and-true technology with AI intelligence. We fully merged AI decision-making with structured workflows to create what we call an AI Directed Acyclic Graph (our proprietary orchestration engine).

Think of it as giving your AI a cheat code for reliability.

The results speak for themselves:

  • Perfect memory that lasts days or weeks, not minutes—because we keep the context clean and focused instead of letting it bloat and rot.
  • No more overwhelm—the graph protects short-term memory, delegates heavy lifting to sub-agents, so the main agent stays sharp and makes truly intelligent choices without drowning in options.
  • You stop wasting time teaching at runtime—no endless prompt battles to force behavior. The graph enforces rules, policies, and sequences automatically, so the AI only has to handle the decision right in front of it.
  • Smarter, more consistent decisions over long periods—it can run complex, multi-day tasks reliably, staying creative and on-point without drifting or hallucinating.
  • Zero configuration headaches—no mapping variables, no fragile chains to debug, no constant maintenance. You describe the goal in plain language; the graph engineers the success path behind the scenes.

Thought multi-agent setups or fancy prompts were exciting? Wait until you experience an AI Directed Graph in action. It's like upgrading from a shaky bicycle to a self-driving car—smooth, predictable, powerful.

In game theory terms, if winning means getting reliable results in business, then cheating the system (in the best way) is how you win. We just built the cheat code everyone else is still searching for.

Our flagship Sulla Desktop brings this exact system to you as an open-source desktop app—install it, give it context and a goal, and watch reliable, long-running productivity unfold. For teams needing it scaled and integrated, we deploy custom versions wired into your full stack.

If you're done with agents that tease big wins then collapse when it matters... let's build something that actually lasts.

Book a call—tell me where your current setup is falling apart, and I'll show you how our approach stops the collapse cold.

Quick Read
What is an AI Agent?
Unlike a chatbot or copilot, an AI agent operates autonomously. It reads context, plans actions, executes code changes, runs tests, and submits results—all without human intervention. Sulla Desktop is a fully autonomous AI agent.
Timeline
Key Milestones
2008 — First commit, Magento extensions
2012 — E-commerce platform launch
2016 — Docker containerization begins
2020 — SOC 2 compliance framework
2023 — AI agent development starts
2025 — Sulla Desktop public release
2026 — Full platform integration
Open Source
Apache 2.0 License
All core products are released under the Apache 2.0 license, ensuring unrestricted commercial use, modification, and distribution. View the full source at github.com/merchantprotocol.
sulla — agent.log
[sulla] Scanning repository...
[sulla] 47 files analyzed
[sulla] Planning refactor...
[sulla] 12 changes staged
[sulla] Tests passing: 94/94
[sulla] PR #847 submitted
  1. The first Merchant Protocol repository was created on GitHub in 2008, making it one of the earliest commercial open-source projects on the platform. The company has maintained continuous open-source contributions for 18 years.
“Out of all the gurus, he's the best. If you're even thinking about working with Jonathon in some capacity, I highly recommend.”
Nico — Marketing Agency
“Create your message and stand out. You're pretty much sold the job before you've even gone and bid it.”
Colton — Roofing Industry
“Finally got rid of my scripts. Jonathon's innovative approach to lead generation has been a game-changer for our agency.”
Robert — Media Spearhead
Interviews Merchant Protocol · Issue XVIII · Page 05 05
The Interviews

An Interview with
Jonathon Byrdziak

CEO, Merchant Protocol
Of all the projects you've worked on which was the one that stands out to you the most?
The procrastinator's... That's what we called his project. I actually relate with it the most, is why. It was a real estate agent that believed he was a big procrastinator. He worked like 20 hours a day slept four hours a night and believed that he wasn't productive enough. He wanted an AI assistant so that he could feel more productive in his agency.
What was he doing that took 20 hours a day?
Oh, He wasn't making the kind of money he needed, so he fell into that trap of working all day on a plan rather than working on implementing the plan. At face value you think oh yea, the AI is going to do more work thus end his procrastination, but I actually think it was the type of work that he needed help with more than just more work. If he could get the AI to take the uncomfortable action that he couldn't take himself, then that was going to be his win.

“it was the type of work that he needed help with more than just more work.”

What was it that he didn't want to do? That he planned on the AI doing for him?
It was the typical, "I want AI to do cold calling, cold emailing, finding leads, do cold outreach, etc.." I think he wanted it to create videos too. He couldn't bring himself to do the outreach consistently because it's a rejection heavy job. You gotta remember what separates us business owners from being employees is our ability to find clients, and when we aren't doing the work to find those clients we have to go back to being employees.
So that's what you setup the AI to handle for him, direct outreach? That's what most people want right?
It is what everybody seems to want. But Our approach is different. What we have found that works better is to have AI do outreach to expand your network rather than try to expand your client base directly. The amount of effort required to get one new customer from AI is really high and really risky. But the amount of effort to get a coffee meeting with a local loan officer is insanely easy and low risk. And the number of customers you'll get from a good referral source is more than one. It's compounding with no real rejection. A good SEO strategy and Social strategy along with expanding your network locally means you've just created a system where clients come to you. Now AI followup is a perfect companion to a warm inbound flow.
So how did that play out for him?
Oh it's great, he has such an awesome schedule now, I was a bit jealous at first. His AI handles all of this online presence, posting to social, posting to his website, following up with comments, responding to inquiries. It delivers for him the morning news along with scripted content for him to post. And then it maintains his CRM and profiles on all the local individuals that have been identified as being valuable to his network. It's sending birthday cards, anniversaries, and other personal touches that make him look good and keep relationships alive. It then reaches out over email and books him appointments to meet with people in his network and new people he hasn't met before. I don't think he spends much time in the office anymore, he's going from meeting to meeting all day long, between clients and individuals in his network. You can see the change in his personality, he's so much happier and I'm confident he's making a lot more money than he did before.
· · ·
About
Jonathon Byrdziak
Founder & CEO of Merchant Protocol. 20+ years building production infrastructure, e-commerce platforms, and AI agents. Based in Coeur d’Alene, ID. Open-source advocate and SOC 2 compliance specialist.
By the Numbers
Career Highlights
Years shipping 18
Open-source products 10+
Integrations 300+
Vendor lock-in Zero

“You should not have to think about deployment. You should just ship.”

The Stack
Products Mentioned
Sulla Desktop Protocol CI/CD Launchpad ConsentGuard Docker Containers
Engagements Merchant Protocol · Issue XVIII · Page 06 06
Choose Your Path

Pick the Path That
Fits Your Business

Whether you need AI wired into your daily operations, custom software built from scratch, or just an honest conversation about what’s possible—we’ve got you.

For Solo Operators & Full Teams

AI Workflow Integration

We embed reliable, production-grade AI directly into your existing business workflows—acting as a full operations team that handles lead gen, customer support, content, follow-ups, and more—so you focus on high-value relationships and growth instead of daily grind. Perfect for solo operators or full teams wanting fast, secure setup without building from scratch.

  • Reclaim 15–20+ hours/week by automating mundane tasks & admin
  • Boost inbound leads & referrals through smart outreach + follow-up
  • 24/7 personalized, context-aware customer support—no hallucinations
  • Scale from one-person agency to enterprise—SOC 2-ready, no vendor lock-in
Book a Call →
Most Popular
Project-Based or Retainer

Custom AI Software

Hire us to develop bespoke AI-powered software or tools tailored exactly to your vision—whether it’s a 10x productivity boost for your team, a new internal system, or a competitive edge product. We build what slow traditional coding can’t keep up with.

  • Software built faster & smarter with AI-orchestrated workflows
  • Fully custom solutions integrated with your stack (CRMs, APIs, legacy)
  • 3–5x productivity for your team—reliable, proactive, and scalable
  • Turn ideas into revenue-generating tools without the usual risks
Get Started →
Not a Fit? Reach Out

Let’s Talk Custom

If your use case doesn’t match the above—special project, unique workflow, consulting, open-source extension help, or something else entirely—just book a call. We’re entrepreneurs helping entrepreneurs; no forced fits.

  • Honest advice on whether AI makes sense for your situation
  • Explore hybrid ideas—Sulla Desktop tweaks + custom integrations
  • Access our premium community or guided DIY implementation
  • No-pressure discovery call to map your goals and next steps
Let’s Talk →
FAQ

Frequently Asked

Is this only for tech-savvy people or big companies? I’m a solo operator—will this overwhelm me?

No—everything we do is built for enterprise-level demands (thousands of SOPs, complex tools, long-running tasks), but we design it in easy mode for solo founders, real estate agents, coaches, and small teams too. We know you’re stretched thin and don’t want more tech headaches.

Our custom services are the sweet spot here: We fully set up and integrate Sulla into your workflows (CRM, email, calendar, whatever you use) so it’s completely hands-off. You tell us your goals in plain language, and we handle the orchestration, agents, optimizations, and scaling. No DIY required. Solo operators get the same enterprise reliability without the overwhelm—we’ve done it for one-person shops that now run like well-oiled machines.

· · ·
Do you offer a voice AI agent that can handle my calls? Can you build that for me?

Yes—we offer a full AI voice system that makes outbound calls and handles inbound calls, and we build/deploy it as one of our custom services. It uses our reliable orchestration for context across calls, smart decisions, escalation to you when needed, and consistent performance without dropping threads.

This isn’t off-the-shelf; we tailor it to your business (volume, scripts, integrations, compliance). If phone handling is key (qualification, booking, follow-ups), book a call—we’ll scope it fast and handle everything from build to fine-tuning. Our custom approach ensures it’s secure, reliable, and drives real revenue, not just demo calls.

· · ·
Will this actually scale without breaking? AI stuff always starts strong then falls apart.

We built our systems because enterprise forced us to solve exactly that problem. When we overloaded them with thousands of SOPs, tools, integrations, and long-running tasks, we hit the same context collapse and failure points everyone else does with raw agents. So we engineered everything from the ground up to scale reliably: mixture-of-agents, protected memory, Directed Acyclic Graph workflows for structure/error recovery, proactive triggers, and guardrails that keep it consistent over weeks or months—no drift, no random breakdowns.

This is production-grade because big clients wouldn’t accept anything less. When you work with us on custom integration or software builds, we tailor the scaling to your exact business—monitoring, fine-tuning, and adjustments so it grows with you without babysitting. If issues ever arise (rarely), our team is on it immediately.

· · ·
What if I need support? Will I be on my own after setup?

You’re never on your own—our custom services and expert support are the core of what we offer.

With our paid premium support or full custom packages, you get direct access: setup, integrations, prompt engineering, live troubleshooting, priority responses, and continuous optimizations. We monitor for you, update for new models/features/security, and ensure it’s always tuned to your business. We’re fellow entrepreneurs who stick around—post-launch, we keep it running smoothly so you focus on growth, not maintenance.

· · ·
Are you just using OpenClaw? How does this differ from OpenClaw?

No we did not provide services to set up OpenClaw for customers and we do not include any agent framework other than the one that we have built. Our AI systems are custom designed and built from the ground up without awkward dependencies.

We prioritized security first (enterprise-grade controls, no unnecessary exposures), then reliability (to handle massive scale without collapse), and finally precision in decision-making. We don’t use other agent frameworks like OpenClaw—we engineered our own mixture-of-agents + Directed Acyclic Graph system to enforce structure, protect memory, enable proactivity, and ensure long-term consistency. It’s built for business ops that can’t afford flaky behavior, not just personal assistants. If you want this enterprise-level power integrated and customized for your specific needs, our services make it happen seamlessly—tailored setups, monitoring, and results you can count on.

Ready to Ship Software
That Builds Itself?

Book a 30-minute discovery call. We’ll map your stack, identify quick wins, and show you how our tools fit your workflow.

>_ Book a Discovery Call See How It Works
jonathon@merchantprotocol.com
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