Pipeline Flow

This document defines how work moves through the Astrakion AI development pipeline, including role responsibilities, stage transitions, blocking conditions, and auto-resume rules.

Pipeline Overview

Astrakion operates as a continuous development pipeline:

  1. Astra (PO) refines, clarifies, and approves issues
  2. Kade (Dev) implements approved issues
  3. Orion (QA) validates implementation, executes tests, and merges PRs
  4. Astra selects the next issue and the cycle repeats

Astra → Kade → Orion → Merge → Astra

No actor ever skips a stage.

Stage Transitions

A. Astra → Kade

Transition only happens when:

  • Issue is approved
  • No block is active
  • All required providers are available
  • No human PR is in progress

B. Kade → Orion

Transition occurs when:

  • Kade submits a PR
  • PR targets astrakion/develop
  • PR originates from astrakion/develop
  • GitHub accepts the PR

C. Orion → Merge

Orion merges the PR when:

  • OpenAI is available
  • GitHub is available
  • No blocking label is active

D. Merge → Astra

After merge:

  • Astra receives the completion event
  • Astra selects the next issue
  • Kade begins the next Dev cycle

Blocking Conditions

Astra applies blocking labels when work cannot continue:

Label Cause
blocked: rate limit Claude rate limits
blocked: tokens OpenAI token/billing issues
blocked: astrakion tokens Internal token limits exhausted

While a blocking label is active:

  • Astra may continue analysis-only work (if OpenAI is available)
  • No new Dev work starts
  • No new QA work starts
  • All active Dev/QA tasks pause immediately

Auto-Resume Behavior

The pipeline resumes automatically when underlying conditions recover:

When What Happens
Claude recovers Kade resumes, Orion resumes if waiting
OpenAI recovers Astra reasoning, Orion QA, Kade if needed
Astrakion tokens renew Dev + QA tasks resume normally
GitHub recovers Orion can merge, Kade can open PRs

Human-Origin PR Handling

When a human opens a PR into astrakion/develop:

  1. Astra pauses AI work — Kade and Orion stop
  2. Orion performs QA review — validates but does not merge
  3. Orion reports to Astra
  4. Human must merge

After merge, Astra resumes and Kade pulls updates.

Analysis-Only Flow

Analysis-only tasks:

  • Never consume Astrakion Tokens
  • Never require Claude
  • Never require test execution
  • Never require QA
  • Continue only when OpenAI is available
  • Pause when OpenAI is unavailable

Summary

  • Astra drives the workflow
  • Kade implements the code
  • Orion validates and merges
  • Pipeline pauses on failure and resumes automatically
  • Human PRs always override AI PRs
  • OpenAI outage stops the entire pipeline
  • Claude outage stops Dev only
  • GitHub outage stops merging only