Governed software delivery, where no step approves its own work
Splits delivery into separate roles — requirements, architecture, planning, building, review, testing, release readiness — each producing a defined document and each having to pass a check before the next stage begins.
The situation it addresses
When one AI interprets the request, writes the requirements, builds the work, reviews its own decisions, and declares it finished, contradictions can survive every stage untouched. The output looks complete. What is missing is any independent check that it does what was asked, and any record connecting the original requirement to the thing that was built.
For an organization paying for delivery rather than performing it, that is the whole difficulty: the work arrives, it looks finished, and there is no evidence to inspect.
Where AI is required
Turning stated intent into precise, testable requirements, and then — separately — reviewing the delivered work against them without inheriting the reasoning that produced it.
How it runs
- 01Intent, constraints, and existing systems collected
- 02Requirements written — scope, rules, outcomes, acceptance criteria
- 03Requirements challenged — ambiguity, conflicts, and gaps identified
- 04Architecture and boundaries defined
- 05Work broken into ordered, testable packages
- 06Built — one bounded change at a time
- 07Reviewed independently — by a role that did not build it
- 08Tested against the requirements and the failure cases
- 09Every requirement traced to what was built and how it was verified
- 10Release readiness — a person accepts, rejects, or returns it
The governing principle: no step approves its own critical output.
What makes it trustworthy
The roles are genuinely separate — requirements, building, review, and testing are not collapsed into one instruction. Every requirement carries an identifier that connects it to what was built and how it was verified, so "is this actually finished" has an evidence-based answer. A missing or invalid document stops the work rather than passing quietly downstream. Progress is saved, so a failure resumes from the last good stage instead of restarting. And scope, architecture exceptions, and release decisions stay with a person.
A record you can inspect. Not a report that the work is done, but the requirement, the review that challenged it, the test that verified it, and the decision that accepted it.