The System Behind the Ship
Managers run the loop. GitHub keeps the record. You keep the floor.
Attended in Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor. Unattended on Hermes. One responsibility contract either way.
The map
Two Lanes, One Record
While you work and while you sleep. Claudia supplies both lanes, GitHub records both, and the models from all your subscriptions are available to both.
While you work, the Human Operator types, shows, or speaks to any surface, steers from Slack and works in Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, where a top-level task is the repository manager. While you sleep, Hermes runs one scheduled repository manager per repository, started by a heartbeat wake against ready issues or by a Slack ask. Claudia supplies both lanes with skills, repository context, and one responsibility contract. Both lanes converge on GitHub, which holds Git, Issues, Pull requests, and Review: Issue, Ready, Draft PR, Review, Merge. Memory is long-term and shared by both lanes: Markdown brains in every repository, indexed by one gbrain on Postgres. The models from all your subscriptions (Astra, Sol, Fable, Opus, Composer, Grok, Flash, GLM 5.3) are available to both lanes.
- Human Operator
- Sets direction, decides what is ready, and keeps the consequential decisions. Direction, shared architecture, secrets, destructive action, production, spend, security floors, and public commitments never move to an agent.
- Claudia Orchestrator
- Keeps intent coherent across every repository you own. Does not copy repository work into a second tracker and does not decide product direction alone.
- Repository manager
- Owns one authorized objective from intake to native merge. A human-started top-level task in Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor, or the repository’s one scheduled manager. Authoring the change does not demote it.
- Scheduled repository manager
- The unattended form of the repository manager: one native Hermes job per configured repository. Never promotes its own proposals to ready and never invents work on an empty queue.
- Worker
- A subagent, delegated builder or reviewer, or delegated Work session with a bounded assignment. Never merges, and never becomes the manager through a credential, tool, or session resume.
- GitHub
- The durable work record. No parallel dispatch, approval, or receipt ledger sits beside it.
- Repository brain
- Current product, architecture, and decision knowledge, versioned with the code. Holds the current answer, not session chronology.
- Hermes
- Native runtime for unattended repository management. Attended work in Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor.
- GitHub pipeline
- Issue: Deferred, blocked, or independently actionable work. Ready: Owner-groomed: outcome, scope, acceptance, and authority settled. Draft PR: Opened at the first pushed change; objective, evidence, and checkpoints kept on it. Review: Checks and review depth chosen from the risk; findings resolved on the head. Merge: Exact head confirmed against the current base, merged natively; outcome confirmed.
Who does what
Responsibility, Not a Roster
Skills are the product. These are the responsibilities that decide who may act, and how far.
Human Operator
Sets direction, decides what is ready, and keeps the consequential decisions.
- Product and portfolio direction
- Grooms an issue and applies the ready label before unattended work starts
- Answers decision requests in Slack or GitHub
Direction, shared architecture, secrets, destructive action, production, spend, security floors, and public commitments never move to an agent.
Claudia Orchestrator
Keeps intent coherent across every repository you own.
- Cross-repository priorities, dependencies, and allocation
- Reusable skills, preferences, and durable portfolio knowledge
- Steers each repository manager with a bounded objective and links
Does not copy repository work into a second tracker and does not decide product direction alone.
Repository manager
Owns one authorized objective from intake to native merge.
- Reads current GitHub, code, and knowledge before acting
- Implements directly or delegates bounded work
- Chooses checks and review depth from the actual risk
- Confirms the exact head against the current base, then merges
A human-started top-level task in Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor, or the repository’s one scheduled manager. Authoring the change does not demote it.
Scheduled repository manager
The unattended form of the repository manager: one native Hermes job per configured repository.
- Wakes on a heartbeat and reconciles existing authorized work first
- Starts new implementation only from the owner-groomed ready queue, or from a bounded Slack ask
- Records progress on the pull request before the wake ends
Never promotes its own proposals to ready and never invents work on an empty queue.
Worker
A subagent, delegated builder or reviewer, or delegated Work session with a bounded assignment.
- Inspects, implements, tests, or reviews the assigned surface
- May create or update the branch and pull request when its assignment includes that
- Returns the head, evidence, findings, and decision needs to its manager
Never merges, and never becomes the manager through a credential, tool, or session resume.
GitHub
The durable work record.
- Pull requests for immediate coherent delivery
- Issues for deferred, blocked, or independently actionable work
- Checks, review comments, merges, and closure
No parallel dispatch, approval, or receipt ledger sits beside it.
The rules
Mechanisms You Can Inspect
Promises are cheap — a durable record, owner-groomed admission, and floors that never move.
GitHub Is the Record
“The first meaningful change goes to a draft pull request. Pushed checkpoints mean a lost session does not lose the work.”
Pull requests carry immediate coherent delivery; the first meaningful change is committed, pushed, and opened as a draft that carries the objective, scope, evidence, and remaining work. Issues hold work that is deferred, blocked, or independently actionable. There is no second copy of the truth to reconcile, so a scheduled manager reconstructs current work from GitHub and the repository on every wake.
- Draft pull request at the first meaningful change; checkpoints pushed
- Issues only for deferred, blocked, or independently actionable work
- Review findings and conclusions recorded on the pull request
- A restarted manager reads the record instead of a recovery log
You Decide What Is Ready
“New unattended implementation starts only from an issue the owner has groomed and labelled ready. Attended work needs no such gate.”
The owner keeps backlog value, priority, scope, and readiness. Attended sessions may groom an issue and apply the ready label on your instruction. A scheduled manager consumes that queue: it may continue authorized work and capture evidenced proposals, but it never promotes its own ideas to ready or starts unrelated improvements on an empty wake.
- Readiness settles outcome, scope, acceptance, dependencies, and authority
- Pickup still revalidates current state and writes a scoped plan
- An empty queue is not permission for an invented audit
- Attended work discovers, decides, and delivers directly
Managers Merge. Workers Return.
“A repository manager may implement and merge its own authorized work after proportionate checks and an exact-head confirmation against the current base.”
A repository manager, attended or scheduled, owns one authorized objective through native merge. It chooses checks and review depth from the actual risk, which may mean no separate reviewer at all. Delegated workers, whether subagents or delegated Work sessions, return the head, evidence, and decision needs to their manager. Authoring the change never demotes the manager into a worker.
- Exact head confirmed against the current base immediately before merge
- Repository protection respected through a native merge path
- Delegated workers return evidence to their manager and never merge.
- Separate review and delegation are chosen by judgment and repository preference, not required by the practice.
Some Decisions Are Never Delegated
“No successful check, personality, or tool availability expands authority.”
Agents own routine reversible choices inside current direction. The floors below stay human-owned at every size of change. Production release can be delegated explicitly to a repository manager, and even then a production database change keeps its own approval.
- Material product and portfolio direction
- Shared architecture
- Secrets and private-data access
- Destructive or irreversible action
- Production authority that has not been explicitly delegated
- Material spend
- Security floors
- Legal and public commitments
Slack Steers. GitHub Remembers.
“A reply grants only the authority it states.”
Slack is where you talk to a repository manager: a thread in the repository channel carries conversation, steering, and the occasional precise decision request. A scheduled manager reports meaningful completion or real failure and stays silent otherwise. The durable record of what happened and why lives on GitHub.
- Conversation and steering in a repository channel or thread
- Meaningful completion, real failure, or a precise decision request
- A reply that grants only the authority it states
- Not progress narration or routine budget notices
- Not a second queue, tracker, or approval ledger
- Not a recovery guarantee; the durable record is on GitHub
Nothing Is Learned Twice
“Search the brain before a new decision; write back what changed.”
Each repository carries a committed brain/ corpus of current product, architecture, and decision knowledge, indexed for retrieval. Managers search it before deciding and update the owning page when durable understanding changes. Retrieval is not certification: a claim is checked against current reality before it shapes work.
- A committed knowledge corpus per repository, in version control
- Semantic search before a new decision is made
- The owning page updated, not a session log appended
- Claims verified on use, not trusted because they were retrieved
The Rules Run the Skills
This is the contract. See what you can ask for inside it — independent skills for product, architecture, design, build, review, test, deploy, and more.
Start Shipping While You Sleep
One contract. Two lanes. You stay in control.