AI agents

An agent is a machine running the automator that takes a ticket and moves it forward on its own, one step at a time. What it does not do on its own is decide: the steps that matter stay with a person. For every job, the record says which machine did what, when, and how it ended.

Give a machine the go-ahead

A machine registers itself when the automator starts with the organization token. A newly connected machine does not work.

1. Open Agents and pick the machine.
2. Press Certify host. From then on it takes jobs from the projects it follows.

Revoke certification stops it: it gets no new jobs, but it stays connected. Nothing it already did is deleted. A job it already started is not taken away: if it never delivers, the job ends up interrupted.

In Details and settings you pick Who does the work (Claude, Codex or OpenCode) and Who reviews the work before delivery. With two engines, it is better to let the other one review.

Which tickets they take

An agent takes a ticket only if a person said it can. In the ticket's AI agents box, under Who works it, pick Agents or A person.

• Until someone decides, the ticket is To assess and no agent takes it.
• The AI gives an opinion ("an agent could take it" or "better keep it with a person"). It is only advice: a person still decides.
• Back to automatic evaluation drops the decision and the ticket goes back to being assessed.

From the terminal (you need permission to edit tickets):

cyi tickets eligibility ACME-12 --project acme-api --allow
cyi tickets eligibility ACME-12 --project acme-api --block --reason "touches production data"
cyi tickets eligibility ACME-12 --project acme-api --auto

Even with the go-ahead, an agent waits if the ticket depends on other work that is not finished yet, or if it has an open question that blocks the work.

One at a time on each ticket

When a machine takes a ticket, it holds it for a limited time. Meanwhile nobody else, person or agent, can start the same ticket. While it works, the machine renews its hold. If it shuts down, the hold expires and the ticket is free again.

A person can also take a ticket from the terminal, so no agent starts it:

cyi tickets lease claim ACME-12 --project acme-api     # 8 hours by default
cyi tickets lease renew ACME-12 --project acme-api
cyi tickets lease release ACME-12 --project acme-api

How a job moves

Always in the same order: triage, plan, work, staging, production. The next step starts only when the previous one is closed.

Each step hands over a written packet that you read before deciding:

• The plan: what changes and why, the risks, the open points, the sources, the scenarios to try and when the work can be called done. At the top there is a short card in plain words with the risk level. CloseYourIt raises the risk by itself if the plan touches the database, the deploy or the CI.
• The work report: what was done, which files changed, which tests ran and how they went, what went differently from the plan.
• The blocker: when the machine stops, it writes why and what it needs from a person.
• The review: the verdict of whoever reviewed the work, with the problems found, ordered by severity.

Where you decide

The plan. No work starts before the plan is approved. The project CTO decides or, if the project has none, the organization CTO. You set them in Project CTO and Organization CTO.

• Accept the plan: the work starts. The notes you add go into the ticket discussion.
• Reject: a reason is required. The plan goes back and a new version is written.
• Ask for clarification: the question goes into the ticket discussion and the request stays in the queue.
• Re-assess: for old tickets. The agent rereads today's code. If the work is already done it closes the ticket, otherwise it rewrites the plan.

The delivered work. If the automatic code checks pass, the reviewer accepts it and the proposal has not changed, the work moves on by itself. Otherwise it stops and waits for Accept the work or Reject.

Production. After staging, the release waits 2 hours. If no new errors show up on staging, it goes to production by itself. If a new error shows up, it stops, and starts again once the error is resolved or ignored (see Errors). Each repository ships one release at a time.

Whoever decides can press Stop on a waiting release. While it stays stopped, no release of that repository goes to production. The ticket shows Stopped — a decision is needed: Unblock and retry starts it again, Close the run stops it for good and the ticket goes back to people.

Requests in Approvals do not expire. If you do not answer, that work stays where it is and nobody moves it forward for you.

Approvals

When you open CloseYourIt, the home screen shows you one decision only: the one waiting the longest. Decide, and the next one appears. Skip puts it back in today's queue, Defer to tomorrow removes it until tomorrow morning. Neither one decides anything.

To see the whole backlog, open Approvals from the menu, or press g then a. You find plans, delivered work, tickets in review, agent questions and change requests on secrets. You only see what is yours to decide.

1. Filter by type, project or agent.
2. Press Review on a row to read it in full and decide.
3. To accept many at once, tick the boxes on the left and press Accept. In bulk you cannot reject or write notes.

Runs that retry on their own are kept apart, in Running, nothing for you to do.

Questions from an agent

When it does not understand something, the agent asks instead of guessing. The question shows up in the ticket's Questions tab and in Approvals.

• Answer under the question, not in the discussion.
• Sometimes the agent proposes 2 to 4 answers, one marked Recommended: one click answers. You can also write your own answer.
• A question marked Work cannot continue without an answer stops the ticket: no agent takes it while the question is open. As soon as you answer, it starts again by itself.
• If the question is no longer needed, press Withdraw.

How a machine is measured

In the Agents list each machine is Online, Offline or Stale. Stale means it has been silent for too long: almost always it is stuck, or switched off and forgotten. If there are open jobs the machine is not reporting, the page says so.

On the machine's page, Performance shows 7, 30 or 90 days, or all time:

Time per step splits each step into approved, rejected, failed and interrupted. Rejected is your judgement. Failed is a breakdown. Interrupted means the machine shut down or lost its connection: it does not count as a mistake. Compare puts several machines side by side over the same period.