intent driven development

Autonomous Workflows

Self-Driving Specs

Specs that execute, verify, and correct themselves:

Execute: chant work invokes an agent to implement the spec
Verify: chant verify re-checks acceptance criteria
Detect Drift: Find when reality diverges from intent

Intent Durability

Specs persist after completion and can be re-verified. When reality diverges from the specification (code changes, tests fail, files deleted), the spec detects this drift and can be re-executed.

Traditional: Spec → Work → Done → Forget
Chant:       Spec → Work → Done → Verify → Drift? → Re-work → ...

Autonomy Spectrum

Level	Description	Approval Required
Supervised	Agent works, human reviews before merge	PR review
Trusted	Agent works, auto-merge low-risk	High-risk only
Autonomous	Agent works, auto-merge, human notified	Exceptions only

Decision Handling

The spec is the decision point. Decisions happen when writing the spec, not during execution.

Manual Intervention

You can interrupt and take control of running work:

chant takeover <spec-id> - Pause the agent, analyze progress, and update the spec for manual continuation.

See the Advanced Patterns guide for detailed usage examples.

Spec Design for Autonomy

Good Specs

# ✓ Clear, verifiable, bounded
---
labels: [autonomous, trivial]
---
# Update copyright year
Change 2025 to 2026 in LICENSE file.
## Acceptance Criteria
- [ ] LICENSE shows 2026

Bad Specs

# ✗ Ambiguous, unbounded
---
# Improve the API
Make the API better.

Decomposition

Use chant split to break down large specs:

$ chant split 001
Suggested breakdown:
  001.1 - Add User model
  001.2 - Implement registration
  001.3 - Add middleware

Good member specs are: independent, testable, small (<30 min), specific.

Verification

# Verify a completed spec
$ chant verify 001
  ✓ Rate limiter middleware exists
  ✓ Returns 429 with Retry-After header
  ✓ Tests passing
Spec 001: VERIFIED

# Verify all completed specs
$ chant verify --all

Drift Detection

Drift is when reality diverges from intent (feature removed, tests disabled, etc.).

$ chant drift
Drift Report:
  023: Rate limiting - middleware removed
  089: Auth middleware - file deleted

Patterns

Nightly Batch

# Cron: 0 2 * * *
chant work --chain --label autonomous --max 50

Verification Gate

# CI/CD
deploy:
  requires:
    - chant verify --all --exit-code

Audit Trail

Specs track verification:

---
status: completed
completed_at: 2026-01-10T15:30:00Z
last_verified: 2026-01-15T00:00:00Z
---

Use git to trace history:

$ git log --oneline -- .chant/specs/001.md

Trust Building

Start supervised, graduate to autonomous:

Week 1: autonomy.level: supervised - review all PRs
Week 2: Auto-merge [trivial] labels
Week 3: Auto-merge [trivial, deps, docs]
Week 4+: Full autonomous with guardrails

Goal: More done, less human time, acceptable risk, intent preserved.

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