Cerebe / Cerebe Software Factory / Decision Ledger

Capability · Autonomy Contract

Every consequential
decision, on the record.

An agent that works while you're away still hits forks — which database, which auth scheme, cursor or offset. The Autonomy Contract makes those forks explicit: each one is enumerated, classified, and either answered or deferred to a recorded safe default. You set the guardrails; the agent works inside them.

~/projects/your-repo — planning
$ cerebe decisions check ok db-engine: decided by human ok auth-scheme: decided by doctrine ok pii-retention: deferred to safe default OPEN api-pagination: cursor or offset for the list endpoints? 1 unresolved decision (neither answered nor deferred). Resolve with `cerebe decisions record` (answer or defer to a safe default). $ echo $? 1

Three verbs

Enumerate. Resolve. Check.

A plain-text ledger at .darkfactory/decisions.yaml — versioned with your code, reviewed in the same PR. No service, no database, nothing to deploy.

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cerebe decisions elicit
Enumerate from the brief
Record a new decision from a brief or cycle against the nine-category coverage taxonomy — answered, deferred, or seeded open. A mechanical recorder: no model in the loop, safe to run air-gapped.
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cerebe decisions record
Answer or defer
Append or amend a decision by id — the mid-run audit trail. Give it an answer (who decided, under what source) or defer it to a recorded safe default. Every write is schema-validated.
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cerebe decisions check
Hold the line
Exits non-zero while any decision is unresolved — neither answered nor deferred. Wire it into a pre-commit hook or CI step so nothing consequential is left unspoken.
Nine categories of decision, every run:
scopeinterfacesdatasecurityuxopstestingrolloutnaming

How the contract holds

Classified, resolved, and carried into the session.

Classified, not freeform

Every entry carries a resolution class (doctrine-answerable, research-answerable, agent-decidable, human-owned) and a reversibility — reversible or irreversible. The cost axis is what governs how much authority a fork demands.

Answered, deferred, or open

An answer records who decided it and the source. A deferral names the safe default it falls back to. Anything still open is a decision nobody has made — and check exits non-zero until it is.

The doctrine travels

Cerebe injects the baseline doctrine — SOTA-first, the iteration ceiling, the parking-lot, and the decision protocol itself — into an agent at session start. The contract is present from the first line, not bolted on after.

The ledger's sibling is .darkfactory/objectives.yaml — a text-hash-bound manifest of what done means, derived from the same brief. Decisions capture what was chosen; objectives capture what must be proven. Two plain files, versioned with the work.

Get Started

Author the guardrails once. Check every run against them.

A versioned decision ledger and a doctrine hook — native to your repo, reviewed in the same PR, checkable in CI. Part of the free-to-use Cerebe Software Factory CLI.

Install Cerebe Software Factory →