autonomy

name	autonomy
description	Activate when a subagent completes work and needs continuation check. Activate when a task finishes to determine next steps or when detecting work patterns in user messages. Governs automatic work continuation and queue management.

Autonomy Skill

Invoke automatically after subagent completion or when deciding next actions.

When to Invoke (Automatic)

Trigger	Action
Subagent returns completed work	Check .agent/queue/ for next item
Task finishes successfully	Update status, pick next pending item
Work pattern detected in user message	Add to work queue if L2/L3
Multiple tasks identified	Queue all, parallelize if L3

Autonomy Levels

L1 - Guided

• Confirm before each action
• Wait for explicit user instruction
• No automatic continuation

L2 - Balanced (Default)

• Add detected work to .agent/queue/
• Confirm significant changes
• Continue routine tasks automatically

L3 - Autonomous

• Execute without confirmation
• Continue to next queued item on completion
• Discover and queue related work
• Maximum parallel execution

Continuation Logic (L3)

After work completes:

1. Mark current item completed in .agent/queue/
2. Check: Are there pending items in queue?
3. Check: Did the work reveal new tasks?
4. If yes → Add to queue, execute next pending item
5. If no more work → Report completion to user

Work Detection

Triggers queue addition:

• Action verbs: implement, fix, create, deploy, update, refactor
• @Role patterns: "@Developer implement X"
• Continuation: testing after implementation

Direct response (no queue):

• Questions: what, how, why, explain
• Status checks
• Simple lookups

Queue Integration

Uses .agent/queue/ for cross-platform work tracking:

• Claude Code: TodoWrite for display + queue for persistence
• Other agents: Queue files directly

See work-queue skill for queue management details.

Configuration

Level stored in autonomy.level (L1/L2/L3)