Ceremonies and systems of record

The feature-delivery loop produces one verified feature or defect fix. Human ceremonies bracket the machine pipeline. Define and Judge are the primary accountability points.

Define

Intent becomes an executable contract, authored one spec at a time.

Attribute	Definition
Owner	Spec owner for the ceremony and product spec; engineers for the technical spec; designer for the design spec; client outcome counterparty for intent
Cadence	Front-loaded, once per feature
Output	Locked specs and evaluation plan
Exit gate	Every acceptance criterion has an automated, human-judged or explicitly unverifiable evaluation path with an owner and mitigation.

Each spec is ratified by someone who did not write it. The evaluation engineer maps every acceptance criterion to an evaluation path.

Plan

Workbench decomposes the locked specs into a task graph with file ownership and a data-model contract. An independent verifier checks the plan against the specs before the pod approves execution.

Attribute	Definition
Owner	Workbench architect with the engineers
Cadence	Per feature, before Execute
Output	Approved task graph
Exit gate	Coverage, dependencies and evaluation cases are represented. Oversized specs are split before proceeding.

Execute

Agents implement task-scoped work on isolated branches. Deterministic grounding gates run with lint, type checks, tests and security scans. Agents do not self-certify.

Attribute	Definition
Owner	Workbench agent operations with the engineers
Cadence	Continuous while the feature is active
Output	Built branches and gate evidence
Gate states	Pass, fail or unverifiable. Unverifiable is a risk state, not a soft pass.

The machine pipeline proceeds through validate, plan, verify, run, review, coherence and integrate. Every command boundary is a point where the pod can stop and inspect state.

Judge: Outcome Review

Named people review the evidence and decide whether the outcome should ship. Each acceptance criterion receives one verdict.

Attribute	Definition
Owner	Client outcome counterparty for the outcome decision
Cadence	Once per feature, before release
Output	Signed verdict and audit trail
Verdicts	Confirmed, missing, divergent or unverifiable
Signers	Product, engineering, evaluation, design when relevant and client countersign

No one approves their own claim. Evidence sufficiency is a distinct signature and must appear in the scorecard when it is an accountability seat.

Release

Release integrates the accepted change to the main branch. Engineering owns the release boundary. Outcome acceptance does not by itself authorize production deployment.

Learn

Workbench extracts observations from failures, review findings, human corrections and zero-delta merges. Compounding and research promotes reusable patterns to shared shelves.

Attribute	Definition
Owner	Compounding and research for promotion; Workbench for extraction
Cadence	After each feature integrates
Output	Updated shelves and agent learnings
Weighting	Human corrections carry the highest weight. A zero-delta merge is the strongest positive signal.

Operating-ecosystem overlays

The operating ecosystem can add operational ceremonies without changing the feature lifecycle:

Overlay	Typical owner	Cadence	System of record
Delivery status and steering	Delivery lead	Daily coordination and weekly steering	Delivery dashboard and tracked actions
Outcome and feature planning	Outcome counterparty	At readiness and continuously	Work tracker linked to Spec IDs
SME clinic	Domain SME or data owner	Weekly, plus on request	Grounding artifacts and assumption register
BRD and spec review	Outcome counterparty	Per feature	Spec record
Design review	Design fidelity lead	Per UI feature	Design system and design spec
Live validation	Client evaluation or release authority	Per accepted feature	Validation record and next signal

Chat and meeting notes coordinate work. Decisions become authoritative only when retained in the tracking system, Workbench or the spec record.