Branching Strategy & Workflow

Astrakion operates as a fully autonomous AI development team using a Kanban workflow and a dedicated AI integration branch (astrakion/develop).

The system is designed to:

  • Avoid endless loops
  • Maintain alignment with human-approved work
  • Ensure AI autonomy
  • Support high-velocity iteration
  • Preserve human control over production code

1. Human-Owned Default Branch

This is the main human-controlled branch, typically main, master, production, or release — referred to as <HOD_BRANCH>.

Rules

  • AI never pushes directly to this branch
  • AI-generated code enters only via PRs created by Astra
  • Humans have full authority to approve or reject PRs
  • Orion and Kade never modify this branch

2. AI Integration Branch

The astrakion/develop branch is the exclusive workspace of the AI team, created to:

  • Prevent merge conflicts
  • Enable rapid autonomous iteration
  • Keep human production code safe
  • Support small incremental updates from Kade

Humans normally do not interact with this branch. It may diverge from <HOD_BRANCH> depending on which PRs humans accept or reject.

3. Kanban Workflow Overview

  1. Human creates an issue
  2. Astra refines and validates it
  3. Human approves (only required for code-impacting issues)
  4. Astra assigns it to Kade
  5. Kade (Sonnet → Opus) implements the change
  6. Orion reviews & merges into astrakion/develop
  7. Astra creates a PR into <HOD_BRANCH>
  8. Human approves or rejects the PR
  9. AI continues working regardless of rejection

4. AI PRs → Human Branch

When Astra submits a PR from astrakion/develop → <HOD_BRANCH>, she attaches the AI-Generated Code Notice.

If the PR is rejected:

  • The change does not enter <HOD_BRANCH>
  • It remains in the AI lane
  • AI does not revise or resubmit unless a new issue is approved
  • AI development continues uninterrupted

Rejected code remains in the AI lane history, and future work builds on it.

5. Human PRs → AI Lane

When a human wants to update the AI baseline:

  1. Submit PR targeting astrakion/develop
  2. Astra pauses AI work
  3. Orion performs QA review
  4. Human must merge — AI never merges human PRs
  5. AI development resumes

6. PR and Merge Rules Summary

PR Type Who Opens Who Merges
AI PRs → astrakion/develop Kade Orion
Human PRs → astrakion/develop Human Human
AI PRs → <HOD_BRANCH> Astra Human
Human PRs → <HOD_BRANCH> Human Human

Key Rule

Only Kade may submit code to astrakion/develop, and only Orion may merge it. Only humans may merge into <HOD_BRANCH>.

7. Loop-Proofing Rules

The system avoids endless loops using:

  • Human approval required only for code-impacting AI issues
  • Analysis-only issues auto-approved
  • Rejected PRs never trigger automatic corrections
  • AI never modifies human-origin PRs
  • Astra pauses AI during human PRs
  • Orion merges only Kade's PRs
  • No automatic branch rewrites

Summary

  • AI work happens entirely in astrakion/develop
  • Humans maintain full control over <HOD_BRANCH>
  • AI PRs into develop are always merged by Orion
  • Human PRs into develop require human merging
  • AI PRs into production require human approval
  • Rejections never disrupt AI workflow
  • Only code-changing issues require human approval