Engineering Insights
The difficult case is not a clear test failure but missing, stale or ambiguous evidence. We treat that uncertainty as a stop condition because an agent’s confidence cannot substitute for an independently observed result from the delivery pipeline.
29 September 2026 · 4 min read · James Smith
Software Factory
Delivery has scaled without creating repair churn, but the flow is not yet converting started work into completed work consistently enough. The constraint is shifting from implementation quality towards planning coverage, repository controls and the speed at which review findings are resolved.
5 September 2026 · 5 min read · James Smith
Engineering Insights
A bounded repair policy is intended to expose repeated review demand. Complete metric definitions and aligned event records are still needed to test whether it does. Agent led repair can…
28 August 2026 · 4 min read · James Smith
Engineering Insights
Agent led repair can preserve momentum, but repeated attempts compound the assumptions that caused the first failure. A hard cap limits that exposure and returns unresolved work to a…
28 August 2026 · 5 min read · James Smith
Engineering Insights
Generating changes is not the difficult part of building an internal software factory. Establishing a trustworthy basis for accepting them is. This is a design status report. The available…
28 August 2026 · 7 min read · James Smith
Engineering Insights
The factory generates code changes. It does not yet provide an auditable record of why a specific change should be accepted. Early coding agents received work without an agreed plan,…
28 August 2026 · 8 min read · James Smith
Engineering Insights
Gate success and cohort delivery measure different populations. They answer different questions. A change can pass its first measured gate without reaching delivery. Code volume appears…
28 August 2026 · 6 min read · James Smith
Engineering Insights
A reported first-pass rate is not a delivery measure. It describes performance at one gate, but the gate definition, denominator and source are unavailable. The same material reports other figures that may use different boundaries or definitions.
28 August 2026 · 7 min read · James Smith
Engineering Insights
Cross family review separates implementation from review. The available evidence does not show that it detects more defects than review by the same model family. A model reviewing its own…
28 August 2026 · 4 min read · James Smith
Engineering Insights
Planning separates intent from implementation only when approval, revision and acceptance decisions are recorded. The gate must define what is approved, who may approve it and which changes…
28 August 2026 · 8 min read · James Smith
Vehicle Fraud
A point-of-sale fraud check sits in the transaction path. The gate must close before the transaction completes. A check that misses the transaction deadline is decorative.
28 August 2026 · 3 min read · AFT Engineering
If you’re building what’s next in the motor trade — lender, broker, dealer or technology partner — we should talk.
support@autofintech.co.ukAlready a partner? Visit the Helpdesk →
ICO registered — GDPR compliant — Cyber Essentials certified