The pre-dig checklist: four yeses before a fence post hole is dug.

Fence rules are local: an association's approval, a city's permit triggers and setbacks, the boundary and the utility marks are each settled by someone else. This checklist uses named examples, from Orlando and Rockledge in Florida, Colorado Springs in Colorado, England and New South Wales, all as checked on 16 October 2026. They illustrate the questions, not the rules elsewhere; the owner confirms each place's rules, and nothing here is legal advice.

Orlando's fence guide says it directly: a fence inside a homeowners' association still needs the association's approval even when no city permit is required. Section 720.3035 of the 2026 Florida Statutes sets edges on that approval in Florida. An association or its architectural committee may review the location, size, type or appearance of an improvement only as far as the declaration of covenants, or guidelines it authorizes, states or reasonably implies, and it must apply those standards reasonably and equitably to every owner.

Three further points in the same section shape a fence company's sequence in Florida. The association may not demand a building permit before it will review an application, so the association and the permit office can run side by side. A denial must come in writing, naming the specific rule or covenant relied on and the part of the proposal that does not conform. And where the declaration sets no setback, the county or city setback applies. Other states write different rules, or none.

On the checklist, this item is filled from paper, not memory: the section of the guidelines that covers fences, supplied by the homeowner; the application as submitted in the homeowner's name, with its date; and the written answer. A denial goes to the owner with its named rule, and the owner decides whether to redesign. What the covenants mean, or whether a denial was reasonable, is a question for the homeowner and their own lawyer.

Any of the three examples below can change, so the row stores the link and the date it was read, not last year's summary.

Orlando's guide also says what a permit application needs: a site plan drawn on a copy of the survey, showing property lines, easements, streets, structures and setback distances, with the proposed fence location and height added. The survey stays with the job, because the line item below depends on it too.

Orlando's guide puts every fence on or inside the property line, and Colorado Springs sends anyone unsure of their lines to a licensed surveyor. The checklist asks one question, what establishes this fence line, and accepts two answers: a recorded survey whose corner markers have been found on site and match it, or a licensed surveyor's stake-out. Any doubt about a marker goes to a licensed surveyor. If neither applies, the row stays open and nobody digs. A line drawn from an aerial photo or a county parcel map is not on the list. Where the fence sits on a shared boundary, what is said to the neighbor is the homeowner's to say, with the owner there to explain the work.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission's barrier booklet says its guidelines are neither a CPSC standard nor mandatory, and that some states and localities have written them into their building codes; the owner checks what the local code requires. In Orlando, using a fence as the required barrier for a pool or spa is itself a permit trigger. Where the guidelines apply, these are the points a crew measures against, and the inspector, not the company, decides whether the barrier complies.

• HEIGHT

  The top of the barrier at least 48 inches above grade.

• OPENINGS

  No opening that lets a 4-inch sphere pass through.

• PEDESTRIAN GATES

  Open outward, away from the pool, self-closing and self-latching.

• LOW LATCHES

  A latch release under 54 inches from the bottom of the gate sits on the pool side, at least 3 inches below the top, with no opening over half an inch within 18 inches of it.

In England, the General Permitted Development Order 2015 lets a fence go up without planning permission to one meter high next to a highway used by vehicles and to two meters elsewhere, unless it stands within the curtilage of a listed building or encloses one. The Order covers England only.

In New South Wales, the State Library's guide to the Dividing Fences Act 1991 explains that a neighbor is asked to contribute through a fencing notice which, under section 11, states the boundary line or, where that is impracticable, the line of the proposed fence, the type of work, the estimated cost and any unequal share proposed. If the neighbors cannot agree, they can use mediation, or after a month either can apply to the Local Court or the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Whether to serve a notice, and anything about either side's rights, is for the owner and a solicitor.

The owner can build a Checklist Bot in Grok Bot under Aevrion's pattern: a named Bot whose job is the sequence below, saved as a skill so the same steps are followed each time. It opens a row at signature, attaches the city's rules and the association's guidelines, drafts the covering letter for the packet the homeowner submits, and lists what each row lacks. Its rows live in the company's own file: the documentation says a Bot's remembered facts should be checked against the source, not trusted as one.

Checking a permit's status on a city portal is supervised browser use where the city allows it. Many browser-based tools are within a Bot's reach, by the documentation's account, yet a site may refuse automation or insist on a human step, and passwords, two-factor codes, CAPTCHAs and fee payments are handed to the owner, who takes over the Bot's screen. Cursor's help pages add a Vault, where saved logins and cards let a Bot sign in and check out without seeing them, and no setting asks for approval each time a saved card is used, so this design saves no card there. Any email it drafts appears as an editable draft for the owner to send or discard. It does not certify a pool gate, interpret a covenant, read a boundary or decide that a fence needs no permit; each of those entries carries the name of the person who made it.

1. 01

   Jurisdiction

   Decides

   Which city or county, and which association, govern this address?

   Output

   Links to that city's fence rules and the association's guidelines, with the date each was read

2. 02

   Association

   Decides

   Does an association apply, and has it approved this fence in writing?

   Output

   The approval letter, or a denial naming its rule, or the owner's note that none applies

3. 03

   Permit

   Decides

   Does any trigger on this city's list apply?

   Output

   A permit number, or 'not needed' with the owner's name and date

4. 04

   Line

   Decides

   What establishes the fence line?

   Output

   A recorded survey with its markers matched on site, or a surveyor's stake-out, named on the row

5. 05

   Pool barrier

   Decides

   Is this fence a required pool or spa barrier?

   Output

   The local rule attached and any inspection booked

6. 06

   Utilities

   Decides

   Have the utilities marked?

   Output

   Locate requested through the state 811 center a few business days ahead, and every utility has responded before digging

7. 07

   Ground-break

   Decides

   Does the crew dig?

   Output

   The owner's dated go

Based on the Grok Bot documentation at docs.x.ai as checked on 15 October 2026. Its statements on Bot rules, Bot-to-Bot messaging, routine triggers, connected apps, approval expiry and payments were rechecked against docs.x.ai and Cursor's help pages on 26 October 2026. The trade examples are Aevrion's illustrations, not documented Grok Bot use cases. Aevrion Ops is an independent consultancy. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or a partner of xAI, SpaceXSI or Cursor. Grok Bot is named here only to describe it.

Locate tickets, with their waiting periods and re-marks, are the subject of the excavation guide in this series; here they are one line. The rest of the row can be written today: for each city the company works in, the link to its fence rules, triggers and setbacks, and for each association met last season, where its guidelines live.

Once that page exists, score the pre-dig check in Aevrion's readiness assessment for workflow automation, a free and ungated tool that rates one workflow on twelve fixed dimensions and hands back its score at once, with a result band, the obstacles it spotted and what to do next. Rule clarity is the one to watch: if the permit triggers for a city live only in the owner's head, it scores low and caps the result. That is a reason to write them down first; after that, a conversation with Aevrion Ops can turn the row into a working Checklist Bot.

1. Before a post hole, a fence needs four yeses: the association, the permit office, the property line and the utilities.
2. In Orlando a fence inside an HOA still needs the association's approval where no city permit is required; Florida law confines that review to what the declaration and its authorized guidelines provide, and requires written reasons for a denial.
3. Permit triggers and setbacks differ between Orlando, Rockledge and Colorado Springs, so every checklist row names its city and the date its rules were read.
4. The fence line rests on a recorded survey or a licensed surveyor's stake-out, never on an aerial photo.
5. CPSC's pool-barrier geometry is not mandatory unless adopted locally, and the inspector decides compliance.
6. A Checklist Bot keeps the rows and drafts the paperwork; it certifies, interprets and decides nothing.