Chapter 02 / 08
Separate authority
Share the context. Name who can change the goal, the criteria, and the rules.
Shared context, separated write authority.
Velocity’s core rule lets the people and agents involved read the same context while preserving ownership of the artifacts that direct and judge the work. A role implementing a change cannot quietly weaken its acceptance criteria to make the change pass.
Assign responsibilities before tools
The Operator owns mission, risk tolerance, and go/no-go decisions. The Coordinator shapes scope, routes work, and keeps its state honest. The Fixer implements within the authorized boundary. The Tester collects independent acceptance-oriented evidence.
The Architect owns invariants, trust boundaries, and durable system decisions. A Process Reviewer identifies reusable process lessons. The Velocity Maintainer owns changes to the reusable lifecycle rules. Use the canonical role definitions for the full limits of each responsibility.
Roles can be hats
One person can use Velocity with one coding agent. Roles do not require seven employees or seven agent sessions. They make changes in responsibility explicit: shape the work, implement it, then switch to validation before accepting it.
At minimum, separate implementation from acceptance. Stronger risks can justify stronger separation between people or sessions. Merely naming a second agent “reviewer” does not establish independence if the implementer can change that reviewer’s criteria.
Watch the boundary
An agent reports that the list preference test fails because the requested behavior is difficult to implement. It may propose a changed requirement. It cannot accept that change itself and close the original issue as fixed.
Keep process evolution explicit
A delivery failure may expose a bad lifecycle rule. Capture the evidence and propose a process change to its owner. Ordinary product work does not authorize editing Velocity’s governed rules. A project overlay may specialize commands, environments, and local responsibilities while preserving core authority.
This separation is compatible with useful autonomy. Once scope and authority are clear, an agent can proceed within them. Crossing a protected boundary needs the authorization that boundary requires.
Established Velocity guidance: Role Authority, Artifact Authority Boundaries, and Governance.