EXECUTIVE BRIEF / THE GOVERNED SOFTWARE FACTORY
Delegate the work.
Retain the control.
AIDA is a governed software factory with selectable autonomy. It supports people and coding agents developing a system, preserving intent and coordinating work through independent review and human-set authority.
The problem it addresses
Coding agents increase output. Coordinating several agents adds another challenge: preserving decisions, avoiding conflicting work, verifying changes independently and knowing what was authorized. AIDA provides the operating structure around those agents.
Choose the human involvement per spec
| Delivery model | Mode | Human participation |
|---|---|---|
| Human-led | operator | A person performs the work; no implementation agent launches. |
| Collaborative | guided | A person works through design decisions and reviews the change. |
| Supervised | drive | Agents build through CI; a person reviews and merges. |
| Autonomous / dark factory | drain | People authorize the work; agents implement, test, independently review and merge within the applicable gates. |
decide is a separate stop: execution waits for an unresolved decision.
What makes it governed
- Versioned specs and decisions; code-to-spec traces.
- Defined advisor, implementer, reviewer and integrator responsibilities.
- Independent review verdicts tied to exact commits.
- CI and merge gates, seat grants and time-boxed mandates.
A practical first evaluation
- Choose one bounded change and explicit acceptance criteria.
- Start with supervised delivery.
- Inspect the change, review evidence and handoffs.
- Delegate suitable work to autonomous delivery as the evidence justifies it.
The management case: make human attention deliberate, make delegated authority explicit, and keep a record connecting intent to the resulting change.
Available today as alpha software on Linux. Supports Claude Code, Codex CLI and Antigravity; harness capabilities differ. Runs under a shared Unix user, without a multi-human security boundary. Production deployment requires separate policy and automation. AIDA does not claim a measured ROI or universal unattended delivery.
Source and getting started: github.com/joemooney/aida
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