The 12 Factors
The operational discipline for working with AI agents. Start with Factor I and progress through each tier.
Context Is Everything
Manage what enters the context window like you manage what enters production.
Track Everything in Git
If it's not in git, it didn't happen.
One Agent, One Job
Each agent gets a scoped task and fresh context. Never reuse a saturated window.
Research Before You Build
Understand the problem space before generating a single line of code.
Validate Externally
No agent grades its own work. Ever.
Lock Progress Forward
Once work passes validation, it ratchets — it cannot regress.
Extract Learnings
Every session produces two outputs — the work product and the lessons learned.
Compound Knowledge
Learnings must flow back into future sessions automatically.
Measure What Matters
Track fitness toward goals, not activity metrics.
Isolate Workers
Each worker gets its own workspace, its own context, and zero shared mutable state.
Supervise Hierarchically
Escalation flows up, never sideways.
Harvest Failures as Wisdom
Failed attempts are data. Extract and index them with the same rigor as successes.