Concepts

Colony turns repository work into queued tasks that Workers execute under the coordination of the Mayor. These pages explain the built-in workflow, the points where humans can steer it, and the optional systems around it.

If you are new to Colony, start with:

1. Core Concepts — tenants, repositories, workflows, issues, and agents
2. The Workflow — how the built-in workflow moves an issue from intake to completion
3. Writing for Colony — how to give the analyzer useful input

Human responsibilities

The role pages describe four kinds of work around a Colony deployment. They are a planning model, not identities or permissions enforced by Colony. One person may perform several of them.

Author Defines work, answers clarification questions, and validates the result.

Reviewer Applies human judgment when a PR needs or requires it.

Operator Configures and observes the deployment, then recovers failed work.

Sponsor Sets rollout scope, budget, and merge policy.

Explore the system

Core Concepts The durable objects and boundaries in Colony.

The Workflow The built-in workflow, including loops and recovery paths.

Roles A practical model for human responsibilities.

Team Patterns Safe ways to introduce and govern Colony.

Agents The Mayor, Workers, executors, and task queue.

Strategy Charters, proposals, and approved strategy snapshots.

Self-Improvement Scheduled issue seeding and candidate selection.

Cost & Budget How spend is measured, budget caps, and projection assumptions.

External PR Review Reviewing eligible human-authored GitHub PRs.

Writing for Colony Writing issues the analyzer can interpret reliably.

Integrations Version control, checks, and human-facing events.