P1 W1: verified STATE.md 32 CAP rows against regression_verify.py (fixed CAP-025 omission — was missing from Domain 9; CAP-031 renumbered to cover the live-apply evidence row). P1 W2: archived 7 platform-root files to .ciagent/archive/ with milestone-suffix names (lossless git mv preserves history): - CAPABILITY_INVENTORY.md → CAPABILITY_INVENTORY-v1.10.md - REVIEW-AUDIT-P05.md → REVIEW-AUDIT-P05.md - VERIFY-P03.md → VERIFY-P03.md - VERIFY-P04.md → VERIFY-P04.md - P4-PILOT-RUN-EVIDENCE.md → P4-PILOT-RUN-EVIDENCE-v1.26.md - AUTONOMY_THESIS.md → AUTONOMY_THESIS-v1.21.md - COST.md → COST-v1.14.md P1 W3: archived 1 consumer file to new .ciagent/nova-blockchain-exchange/archive/ (D-221: consumer archives land in per-project subdir): - nova-blockchain-exchange/ROADMAP.md → archive/ROADMAP-v1.26.md The 4 pre-execution files (CLARIFY/GRILL/IDEATE/RESEARCH) stay active through v1.27 — they hold the v1.27 P0 content (D-219 refinement, G-Q2); the v1.26-era content is in git history. They archive at v1.28 P1 if v1.28 happens. Dangling references to archived files found in PROJECT.md, ARCHITECTURE.md, IAM_POLICY.md, nova-blockchain-exchange/README.md — fixed in P2. ---ci--- project: acdl phase: 1 milestone: v1.27 status: execute wave: W4 ---ci---
3.7 KiB
Nova — The Autonomous Cloud Delivery Platform: Autonomy Defensibility Brief
Strategic direction, leadership metrics & unified story Last refined: v1.21 — reframe from "no-humans" to "autonomous operations"
The thesis
Nova is the autonomous infrastructure layer that lets product teams ship without engaging an operator, and lets executives trust the platform not because it never fails but because every decision is captured, scored, and accountable.
Autonomy in operations; human at stage gates. Normal operations — provisioning, healing, remediation — run without an operator in the loop. Human attestation remains required at stage gates: QA signs off for production, SRE greenlights based on operational readiness. The absence of an operator in the loop is never the absence of a record.
Grounded proof (measurable today)
| Proof | Source | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Capabilities verified, none broken (live-AWS caps honestly skipped, resources torn down to zero-cost steady state) | regression report | grounded |
| Decision Ledger captures 100% of automated decisions with outcome backfill | decision ledger store | grounded |
| Attestation coverage: 100% of prod/dr promotions attested by a human | attestation gates + outbox | grounded |
| Confidence-gated policy engine (deterministic, not an LLM) — weighted inputs, band outcome | confidence signal | grounded |
| Attestation matrix with separation-of-duties on prod | attestation matrix + separation-of-duties | grounded |
| Pre-apply cost estimates (offline) | cost adapter | grounded |
| Test suite passes | test results | grounded |
Deferred proof (measurable when blocking work lifts)
| Proof | Blocking work | Unblock requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Touchless resolution rate across production estates | 0 consumers today | Pilot estate activation |
| Live infrastructure health (ECS, ALB, RPS) | Live AWS torn down | Live AWS re-provisioning |
| Onboarding funnel: requested → granted | Auto-grant not built | Auto-grant implementation |
| Drift auto-reversal rate | No drift scheduler | Drift detection scheduler |
| Predictive vs reactive ratio | No emitter | ML anomaly-forecasting service |
| Tamper-evident ledger checkpoints (S3 Object Lock + JWS) | Audit ledger build-out | Audit ledger build-out |
Anti-claims (what Nova is NOT)
- Nova's decisions are NOT made by an LLM. They are made by a
confidence-gated policy engine: deterministic scripts calculate a
score, and a band outcome gates the action. The platform functions
without AI. The Decision Ledger captures this real decision path —
not a fabricated "AI agent." When an LLM planner is added, it will
emit richer
alternatives_consideredwithout schema breakage. - Nova does NOT remove humans from accountability. Only from normal operations. Every stage-gate promotion (qa/prod/dr) requires a human attestation recorded with approver identity, separation-of-duties check, and the evidence matrix.
- Nova is NOT for legacy, untagged, or freeform infrastructure. It requires Terraform-managed, policy-aligned, fully-tagged inputs.
- Nova does NOT fabricate metrics. Every metric is grounded (cites a source), derived (documented formula), or deferred (cites the blocking work). No fabricated numbers in any deck slide or metrics entry (the "no fabrication" hard constraint).
What "won" looks like
By month 18, Nova is the layer enterprise leadership points to when they say "we don't have an infrastructure ops team anymore, and the audit trail is stronger than it ever was" — and it is the layer their AI engineering teams reach for first when an agent needs to deploy.