The Software Factory
One board that carries every piece of work from idea to production, with a person at the gates you choose and your rules checking every step.
Running several agents leaves work stranded between tools: an approved spec nobody started, a worktree merged locally but never pushed, a pull request open for a week. The Software Factory gives every piece of work one identity, from the moment it is filed to the moment it reaches production. It shows you where each item is and what is waiting on you.
The Factory lives in Mission Control. Open it from the sidebar or with ⌘K → Software Factory, then pick the Factory tab in the header. Agents is the other tab: it shows who is running right now. Warden remembers which tab you used last.
The line#
Every item moves along the same line of stages, left to right:
| Stage | What happens there |
|---|---|
| Ideas | Work comes in: typed by you, pulled from GitHub issues, Linear or Jira, or filed by an automation. |
| Triage | A read-only planner sizes the idea, picks a lane and lists risks and open questions. |
| Shape | The lane's plan or spec is drafted, and a person approves it. Skipped for lanes with no shaping. |
| Build | An agent builds it in its own git worktree: a sandboxed unattended run, or a chat you can watch and steer. |
| Review | The change is reviewed by the policy engine or by a person, optionally against the original ask by a separate reviewer. |
| Main | The change is merged locally or through a pull request. |
| Staging, Production | Observed, never driven: Warden reads a branch, tag or GitHub deployment you choose to tell you when the change got there. |
| Shipped | Every stage that applies is done. |
What each stage means has the detail and every status you can see on a tile.
Lanes: how much sign-off a piece of work gets#
Not every change needs the same ceremony. Each item travels in a lane:
| Lane | For | Shape | Build | Review and merge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Express | Trivial, low-risk changes | None | Sandboxed run, starts by itself | Policy engine reviews; merges when policy allows |
| Standard | Most work | A plan a person approves | Chat in a worktree | A person reviews and merges |
| Assured | Risky or important work | A full spec, approved phase by phase | Chat in a worktree | A person reviews and merges, after a check against the spec |
Triage picks the lightest lane that is safe. Anything touching auth, permissions, migrations, payments, secrets, infrastructure, CI or public APIs never goes to the lightest lane. You can change the lane at any point until the build starts. See Lanes and gates.
Needs you#
Across the top of the Factory, the Needs you strip collects every decision that is waiting on a person, across all items: triage calls, plans and specs to approve, builds that need an answer, changes to review, merges held by policy. Each chip opens the exact place to act. Amber dots mean an item is waiting on a person; blue means an agent is working on it.
The same events reach the notifications inbox, and Telegram if you turn on Settings → Notifications → Software Factory.
Your rules still apply#
Every move the Factory makes (starting a build, approving a review, merging, opening a pull request) is checked live by the same policy engine that checks your agent's commands. A rule can hold any merge that touches migrations/, ban unattended merges on Fridays, or require a ticket before merge. Unattended builds run under the stricter automated-runs rules. See Lanes and gates.