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Week 2 of Summer into AI 2026 hosted by @advisoryhour — theme: Red, White & Boom.
March 5, 1770. Five colonists are dead. Eight British soldiers are in custody. And John Adams — future President, committed patriot — has agreed to defend them. You are his co-counsel. Five witnesses take the stand: Nathan Maverick (the victim's grief-stricken brother), Captain Preston (military, formal), Richard Palmes (moderate merchant bystander), Dr. Benjamin Church (hostile Patriot physician), and Private Montgomery (the frightened young soldier who fired first). Cross-examine each one. Then watch 12 historically-named colonial jurors deliberate in real time.
Worth noting alongside this: Megaman 1776 / Liberty of Death 1776 Megaman 1776 puts you in side-scrolling combat against the Crown; The Boston Defense puts you in the courtroom defending the Crown's soldiers — same conflict, the most uncomfortable possible angle
How the AI works
Three Claude endpoints run the trial. The testify endpoint streams each witness's testimony via SSE — each of the five witnesses has a distinct system prompt personality, and the defense strategy you chose at the start (Self-Defense, Mistaken Command, or Lawful Military Duty) is injected so testimony responds to your legal angle.
The crossexamine endpoint uses the evaluate_crossexamination tool to score your question: credibility_shift (−30 to +20), key_point_landed, opportunity_missed, and a witness_reaction in character. Your cross-examination skill directly changes each witness's credibility meter.
The jury endpoint receives your defense strategy and all five credibility scores. Claude generates 12 named colonial-era jurors — merchants, coopers, shipwrights, clergy — each with an occupation, a vote, and their reasoning. The verdict scales with how well you cross-examined.
How to play
Choose your defense strategy — it shapes every witness's testimony and the jury's frame
Read the streaming testimony, then type your cross-examination question
Your question quality shifts the witness's credibility meter — weak questions backfire
After all 5 witnesses, watch the 12 jurors reveal their votes one by one
Where to play
Demo: demo-16-the-boston-defense.vercel.app
Code & README: demo-16-the-boston-defense
Summer into AI 2026 · Theme 2: Red, White & Boom
Original source
Canonical Substack URL: https://jakestrait5.substack.com/p/summer-into-ai-2026-the-boston-defense.