The dispatcher and durable state

The dispatcher is the long-running process that turns ready tickets into builds. Agents supply judgment inside the pipeline; deterministic code decides what runs next.

bun ab dispatch

It watches your ticket source, claims eligible tickets, pins their specs, and starts isolated build-runners up to capacity.

Ready work becomes a build

A ticket is claimed when it passes every gate:

• Ready state. The configured workflow state, required labels and source filters.
• Blockers. Every dependency is done.
• Destination. Its target (main or an integration node) accepts new work.

Others stay queued. See Tickets and specs for grooming and Intake and harvest for proposed work.

Each build gets its own workspace (local git worktree or remote sandbox) and a build-runner that owns its pipeline. Capacity caps concurrency: a work build holds a slot while it runs; an integration node holds one only while it verifies, not while collecting children. See the integration tree.

The log is the source of truth

The BuildStore holds typed, append-only event logs and artifacts:

• Per-build log. Phase transitions, verdicts, escalations and answers.
• Repository journal. Dispatcher runs, harvest and operator settings.
• Artifacts. Specs, plans, reports and evidence.

State is reduced from those events; a snapshot is only a cache.

Agents report through the typed ab CLI (ab done, ab verdict), not their output; code validates the deposit, applies the gates and records the transition.

Resume the work, not the chat

A restart loses nothing. The dispatcher continues each build from its recorded phase, completed boundaries, artifacts and feedback, even in a replacement sandbox. Authority boundaries hold:

• Unanswered escalations stay parked until your operator agent answers.
• Pending operator commands and actionable work proceed.
• A restart never grants permission or resets an exhausted retry budget.

The operator agent stays outside

Your operator agent is an external coding agent you direct, like Claude Code or Codex. It files and grooms tickets with you, operates the builds the repository's dispatcher dispatches, answers bounded escalations and manages merge consent, using the ab CLI locally or the same tools over MCP. You make the product calls. Autobuild never hosts or starts it, and its chat isn't part of the build's paper trail.

Next: operator surfaces for the controls, one build end to end for the phases.