arthai-marketplace

/autopilot

Autonomous work loop — picks up issues, implements, QAs, PRs. Stops for merge approval.

Synopsis

/autopilot [issue_number] [--dry-run] [--urgent-first|--least-first]

When to use it

Quickstart

/autopilot --urgent-first

What you’ll see: the open issues and PRs ranked P0–P5, then the loop starts on the most urgent item. It self-paces through implementation and QA, opens a PR, and stops — it never merges. After you merge, it picks up the next item automatically.

Examples

/autopilot                  # rank the backlog, ask which direction to work
/autopilot 141              # work just issue #141
/autopilot --urgent-first   # P0 → P5: critical items first (recommended default)
/autopilot --least-first    # P5 → P0: warm up on small items
/autopilot --dry-run        # show the ranked queue and plan without doing anything

Arguments & flags

Flag Values Default What it does
issue_number — none Skip ranking, work this issue only
--dry-run — off Assess and classify only; report what it would do — good for trust-building
--urgent-first — — Work the queue P0 → P5
--least-first — — Work the queue P5 → P0

What it does

  1. Assess — scans open issues, your PRs, and review comments; ranks everything P0 (critical) to P5 (nice-to-have) using labels and impact rules. If no direction flag was given, it asks you — user-confirmation checkpoint. Vague issues without acceptance criteria are flagged for your triage, never auto-picked.
  2. Classify risk — scores blast radius, reversibility, confidence, and domain sensitivity (0–12). Low risk proceeds autonomously; 6–8 proceeds with notice; 9–10 stops and asks — user-confirmation checkpoint; 11–12 is refused. Migrations and auth/payment code always escalate.
  3. Verify — reproduces the bug before touching code; stale already-fixed issues get closed instead of “fixed” again.
  4. Plan — defines expected files/layers and objective completion criteria (each with a verifiable done_when clause).
  5. Implement — simple fixes inline; multi-file work via backend/frontend agents plus a QA agent. Every commit and test run is captured in an evidence log.
  6. QA — runs tests, lint, type checks (2 fix attempts max, then it escalates).
  7. Self-review — a separate gate after QA passes: checks scope growth (>1.5x planned stops the loop), hardcoded values, error handling, security, test coverage, and unintended changes; re-assesses risk now that code exists. Unrelated bugs found along the way are filed as issues, not fixed inline.
  8. PR — mandatory stop — opens a PR whose body is assembled from the evidence log, then stops and waits for your merge approval — user-confirmation checkpoint. It never merges. While waiting, it pre-assesses the next item.
  9. Post-merge — checks CI on main (auto-reverts and reopens the issue if its merge broke CI), records learnings, then loops to the next item. Once this completes, a completion-verifier agent checks the item’s evidence against its completion criteria (see below).

Agents spawned

Agent Model tier Role
backend / frontend sonnet Implementation, per the plan’s layers (simple fixes run inline with no spawn)
qa sonnet Reviews and validates alongside implementation agents

architect (opus) is not spawned directly by autopilot — for risk-6+ features, Phase 4 (PLAN) delegates to the /planning skill, which spawns architect itself.

Post-merge verification: after a work item’s full lifecycle completes, autopilot spawns completion-verifier (sonnet) to check the item’s evidence against its completion criteria. It reports PASS, GAPS FOUND, or INCONCLUSIVE — gaps don’t block, you decide whether to rerun.

Output & artifacts

Troubleshooting

Problem Fix
BLOCKED: Can't resolve test failure after 2 attempts The loop escalates instead of thrashing — investigate and give guidance
SCOPE: Started at 3 files, now at 6 Scope guard fired — approve the growth or trim the change
COST: This item has used 6 agent spawns Per-item budget hit — continue, skip, or split the issue into smaller ones
Issue skipped as unrankable It has no acceptance criteria — add them to the issue and re-run
Loop stopped and you want it back /autopilot resumes from .claude/.workflow-state.json; saying “stop” or any unrelated request pauses it