Skip to main content

​
The repository is the single source of truth

SDLC Harness does not depend on an external project management service. The protocol, plans, execution state, and evidence all enter Git history with the code.

​
Feature state machine

  • not_started: Can start after its dependencies pass.
  • in_progress: Protected by a valid claim and subject to the owner’s WIP limit.
  • blocked: Records an external reason that prevents progress and does not consume a claim.
  • passing: All completion gates have been satisfied; by default, the state cannot silently regress.

​
claim, owner, and actor

An owner identifies responsibility. An actor distinguishes separate agent sessions started by the same owner. A claim is always mutually exclusive per feature and includes a lease expiration time. In Solo mode, verify creates a temporary claim when needed, so a single user usually does not notice the lease. Team mode requires an explicit claim, and another owner can take over only after the lease expires. Both modes reject writes that compete with another owner’s active claim.

​
Completion is an evidence chain

  • Automated verification records the command, exit code, execution time, and commit SHA.
  • Manual verification binds an explicit manual verification index to an observation.
  • A review binds to the current commit, cannot be performed by the owner of the feature’s claim, and must follow the latest verification.
  • An artifact approval binds to the file’s SHA-256 content hash and becomes invalid when the content changes.
  • feature complete atomically checks the completion conditions for one feature.
  • validate audits repository-wide structure, dependencies, stages, evidence, and traceability.

​
Nine-stage workflow

The workflow does not mechanically start at stage 1 every time. Feature decomposition, agile implementation, and self-acceptance form the core loop. Requirements, architecture, user stories, and milestones enter based on risk and scope. Project configuration determines whether deployment and observability apply. deploymentMode and observabilityMode let libraries, CLIs, and internal scripts without deployment targets or runtime audiences skip stages that do not apply.

​
Atomic writes and concurrency

Feature creation, claim operations, verification evidence, and lifecycle updates use atomic writes and revision checks. When SDLC Harness detects a concurrent edit, the safe path rereads and merges once or explicitly refuses to overwrite the change instead of silently discarding another agent’s work.

​
Tool boundaries

SDLC Harness executes the commands you declare and audits their evidence. It does not determine whether requirements are correct, replace a test framework, decide product value automatically, or provide a true distributed lock. Cross-machine claim operations still coordinate through Git commits and pushes.