SDLC Agent-Skill Wiki

Artifact: Autonomy policy

2 min read

A durable, per-project document that states which external actions an agent may take unattended, and under what conditions. It is read by every automated workflow before any write. The documented instance is the Factory’s .agent-factory/config.yaml in builder-skills.

workflows:
  collect:
    implement:
      mode: criteria
      allow: [verified defects in owned code]
      stop: [security-sensitive changes, unclear product intent]
    reply:
      mode: criteria
      require: [one missing detail blocks triage or verification]
    close:
      mode: never
  pr-babysitting:
    approve: { mode: never }
    merge:   { mode: never }
    soak: 10 minutes

It has four parts. Scope: the repositories and sources the workflows may read, each with an exact channel, project, or repo boundary. Per-action policies: separate implement / reply / close / approve / merge / publish / notify entries, each never, manual, criteria (with allow/stop lists), or a named proof point (after-fix, after-merge). Schedules and isolation: requested cadences and the worktree mode (fresh-per-run from origin/main). Prompt overlays: skill_prompts.<skill> text that adds project guidance and cannot grant permission.

Three properties make it distinct from its neighbours.

  • It governs authority, not design or style. artifact-constitution holds principles a plan must satisfy, and artifact-standards holds conventions the code must follow. This document says what the agent may do to the outside world: reply to a customer, approve a PR, merge, deploy, close an issue. It is the document form of pattern-action-gating.
  • It is a convention, not a schema. “The config is an agent-readable convention, not a validated schema. Unknown fields do not install connectors or create jobs.” The agent reads it as policy text, so nothing checks it mechanically. That is why the Factory insists on reading back every host automation the policy asks for.
  • It must not hold secrets or customer data. It names connections and opaque references only. “Never put tokens, passwords, private URLs, or copied customer records in it.”

builder-skills:

  • builder-factory writes and maintains it interactively, preserving existing choices and asking about missing ones.

Read (not produced) by every other Factory module: builder-factory-collect, builder-factory-lookback, builder-factory-human-digest, builder-factory-review-prs, builder-factory-babysit-pr, builder-factory-ship, builder-factory-watchdog, builder-factory-recover.

See Also

  • pattern-action-gating — the pattern this document configures.
  • artifact-constitution · artifact-standards — the principle and convention documents it is easily confused with.
  • gh-aw — the runtime equivalent, where workflow frontmatter declares permissions and safe outputs that are compiled into CI rather than read as prose.

Graph View

Backlinks