Maintain a service

Give an agent a bounded software responsibility before asking it to maintain an entire product.

Prepare access and instructions

Provide access to the governing Cortex modules and source repository. Supply any external credentials through Secrets. If it will deploy or release packages, grant the required Cloud Project and registry permissions.

Document the canonical repository, branch workflow, build and test commands, deployment procedure, and production verification. State which environments it may change and which actions need approval.

Start with a small change

Create an issue such as:

Fix the documented error message for an expired invitation. Add the appropriate regression check, follow the repository's release instructions, and report the deployed revision and verification result. Do not change the database schema.

The exact assignment should match the access and deployment authority you granted.

Preserve working state

Assignments share a computer. Ask the agent to inspect existing changes before editing and follow the repository's branch or worktree conventions.

Files under /home/agent persist across restarts. Keep repositories there.

Define done

For a deployable change, completion can include tests passing, source pushed, deployment healthy, and the issue updated with evidence. Specify whether review is required before deployment.

Ending a model turn does not perform those steps automatically. Inspect the resulting change and deployment before expanding the responsibility.

See Troubleshooting for related guidance.