Autonomy tiers

Autonomy is earned, not granted.

Agents don’t get merge power by default. They earn it on evidence — and a human still holds the brake.

The tiers

Three tiers. One brake: a human.

T0 — ACTIVE TODAY
Manual.
Every merge is human-approved. The machinery verifies; you decide.
T1 — DEFINED AND APPROVED
Deterministic.
Docs, chores, and dependency bumps auto-merge only when CI is green, novelty is clean, and a signed receipt exists — behind a twofold brake. Arming stays a human decision.
T2 / T3 — DEFINED, UNBUILT
On purpose.
The spec exists. We won’t build them until the evidence says they’re safe.
The trust ledger

Evidence, not vibes.

Every merge outcome and rollback is recorded, append-only. Tiers are earned on this evidence — never on vibes. Promotion between tiers stays a human decision, always.

Hard limits

What never auto-merges.

At every tier, these stay human-only:

  • Production deploys.
  • Auth and security paths.
  • Irreversible actions.