Ratchet Development

Built, Deployed, Exercised: A Maturity Profile for AI-Assisted Systems

A feature can exist in source, remain absent from the running product, and still be unproven in repeated use. AI system maturity is a profile,...

July 27, 2026

An AI-assisted workflow repeatedly continues until a structural checkpoint requires a new architectural decision.

The Architect’s Trance

July 27, 2026

A proportional-rigor spectrum showing under-ratcheted, proportionate, and overengineered software controls.

When Ratchet Development Becomes Overengineering

July 27, 2026

The six-step Ratchet Loop: Authorize, Build, Verify, Diagnose, Encode, and Inherit.

The Ratchet Loop: How AI Mistakes Become Durable Controls

July 27, 2026

Codex audit summary showing 3,664 of 3,665 tests passing and confirming that the source repository was not modified.

Claude Code Builds. Codex Reviews. I Retain Authority.

July 25, 2026

Autonomy Is Not Authority: The Human Role in Agentic Software Development

July 24, 2026

The Ratchet Principle: How AI Mistakes Become Better Software

July 23, 2026

Governance embedded in the environment. This read-only tracker projects current architectural state without becoming a second source of truth. Canonical decisions remain the authority, and states that cannot be safely derived remain explicitly unknown.

Beyond Vibe Coding: How Ratchet Development Turns AI Fallibility Into Governance

July 22, 2026