The studio runs on a small set of rules. They are boring on purpose.
Reversible work with no outside effect. Writing code, running tests, opening branches and deploying to staging.
Work with a real but recoverable effect. Merging to a shared branch, changing a schema or sending a draft for review.
Money, production deploys, secrets, authentication, public posts and anything that cannot be taken back.
A venture earns more build time by passing a gate, not by being interesting.
Gate A: pull
Do strangers show up on their own?
Gate B: retention
Do they come back after the first week?
Gate C: willingness to pay
Does anyone pay, or clearly would?
Before an agent runs unattended on a codebase, the codebase needs tests and CI. Without a check that can fail, an agent loop repeats its own mistakes faster. So the harness comes before the autonomy, and each lesson from a failure becomes a new check.
No agent loop runs on code without a verification floor. Work is done when the tests pass and the output has been looked at, not when it was written.
Studio feed Simulated activity
An illustration of how the tiers and gates show up in daily work. Not live data.
researcher · Cozy Compute
looked for signs of willingness to pay
GreenGate C
reviewer · OpenHOA
proposed a schema change for approval
Yellow
researcher · TankTrue
reviewed unprompted visits for the pull gate
GreenGate A
builder · RunSite
opened a branch for onboarding copy
Green
builder · TankTrue
queued a production deploy for the operator
Red
researcher · OpenHOA
reviewed return visits for the retention gate
GreenGate B
reviewer · TankTrue
requested a merge to the shared branch
Yellow
researcher · RunSite
reviewed unprompted visits for the pull gate
GreenGate A