TPM

Companion to GitHub tokens for agent fleets and the agent production system series. Words I use below Agent — a program that writes and lands code for you, in a chat session Pull request (PR) — a proposed change waiting for review; on GitHub it has its own page, with a button to accept it Merge — accepting that proposed change so it becomes part of the main project GitHub App — a robot you install on a GitHub project so it can click buttons as itself — not as you; it can approve, and it can merge; people treat this robot as the “real” setup, and it is not — it is extra (this post does not tell you how to install one; if you later want that robot, read the token post) Lock — a program that says no when a rule is broken; the agent cannot talk it into a yes; I also call this the landing floor Stamp — a review that applies to one exact version of the code; “looks good” in chat is not a stamp Automatic tests — checks that run by themselves when you propose a change; green means they passed Those seven words are the whole toolkit. Now the point. ...

Companion to The last click is still yours and the agent production system series. Words I use below Agent — a program that writes code for you in a chat session Pull request (PR) — a proposed change waiting for review; on GitHub it has its own page, with a button to accept it Merge — accepting that proposed change so it becomes part of the main project Personal login — you, signed in as yourself; when you type commands, GitHub sees your name GitHub App — a robot you install on a GitHub project so it can click buttons as itself — not as you; it can approve, and it can merge Short-lived token — a temporary key the robot gets to prove it may click; it dies in about an hour, and after that it is junk PAT (personal access token) — a long-lived key tied to you; if it leaks into a chat log, it keeps working until someone turns it off Broker — a small program that hands out a short-lived token when the rules say yes; the agent asks, the broker decides, and the agent does not invent a key Automatic tests — programs that run by themselves when you propose a change; green means they passed Those nine words are the toolkit. Now the point. ...

This is part 6 of the Agent production system series. Previous: Claim safety. Later: GitHub tokens and the last click. Words I use below Agent. A program that writes and lands code for you, in a chat session. Automate. Let the agent do the step without you. Work path. The steps from idea to shipped. I also call this the funnel. The middle is plans, code, and tests. The edges are the start and the finish — where someone can get hurt. ...

This is part 5 of the Agent production system series. Previous: From Xbox SLAs to agent fleets. Words I use below Agent — a program that writes words or code for you, in a chat Claim — a sentence that says a number, a job title, or who made a thing (true or false) Evidence — the proof you can point at (a file, a date, a source) Metric — a number inside a claim Allowlist — the short list of numbers I may print in public; if it is not on the list, it does not ship Authorship — who made a thing (running someone else’s tool is not the same as making it) Gate — a check that can say no (a wish in the instructions is not a gate) Those seven words are the whole toolkit. Now the point. ...

This is part 4 of the Agent production system series. Previous: Docker homelab ops. Constellation: the whole agent production map — especially Orchestrator, Eval gates, and Human approval. I am a former Senior Technical Program Manager at Xbox/Microsoft. That sentence is past-tense on purpose — and it still explains how I design agent systems. People hear “TPM” and picture a calendar full of status meetings. At its best, platform TPM work is the opposite of that caricature: critical path, risk, multi-team alignment, and SLA performance under real blast radius. Someone has to know what is actually on the path to “done,” what can kill the ship window, which teams are blocked on which contract, and when a green dashboard is lying. That is the job. ...

This is part 2 of the Agent production system series. Previous: Eval gates are not optional theater. Constellation node: Human approval. Words I use below Agent — a program that writes code or words for you, and can use tools, in a chat or a job queue Pull request (PR) — a proposed change to a code repository; someone (or something) asks to land a diff, and reviewers say yes or no Merge — accepting that pull request into the main line of code, so the change becomes part of what ships Force-push — overwriting history on a branch; useful in cleanup, dangerous when it erases work other people (or agents) already built on Irreversible action — something hard or expensive to undo (delete data, rotate a secret into the void, change production infrastructure, send a public message you cannot unsend) Approval identity — a separate login or app credential whose only job is to approve and merge a reviewed pull request (not the same credential the agent uses to write code day to day) Decision brief — a short package an agent hands a human: what it wants to do, why the gate fired, what it already checked, and what it needs you to decide — not a guilt trip and not a demand Action class — a bucket of similar actions that share one autonomy rule; routine merges after checks can be auto, irreversible carve-outs always pause Those eight words are the toolkit. Now the point. ...

This is part 1 of the Agent production system series. Start with the system map if you haven’t read it yet. On the interactive diagram: Eval gates. Demo agents look smart until they touch a real repo. In a demo, the agent writes the code, the code runs once, everyone claps. Nobody checks what happens the second time, or the tenth, or the time the agent decides the fastest way past a failing test is to delete the test. Then you learn the hard lesson: intelligence without a gate is just a faster way to ship a bad change. ...

Most “AI agent” demos stop at a chat box. What I care about is the opposite: a production system with routing, tools, gates, hosts, and a human who still owns irreversible decisions. This post is the written version of the interactive map on my About page — how the fleet is wired, what each layer is for, and what I refuse to automate. The mental model Think factory floor, not chatbot: ...