Kelly Handbook Ch11 — Software Factory Pattern
Summary: Chapter 11 documents the Kelly Router's "software factory" — a pipeline that takes product ideas through six stages (Intake → Research → Planning → Implementation → Testing → Release) with structured gates between each phase. The chapter includes a detailed case study showing a complete feature (CSV export) going from idea to production-ready in 75 minutes. The factory operates with two speed paths: a full pipeline for new products and a quick path for features and bug fixes.
Key Concepts
- **Software factory pipeline:** Idea → Research → Planning → Implementation → Testing → Release
- **Stage 1 — Intake:** Project directory creation, intake.md with classification (new product vs. feature vs. bug fix)
- **Stage 2 — Research (CIS loop):** Context → Information → Synthesis → READY/NOT-READY gate
- **Stage 3 — Planning:** product-brief.md, prd.md, architecture.md, ux-design.md, planning-summary.md (gate: PASS/FAIL)
- **Stage 4 — Implementation:** Stories (user-story sized), sprint execution, validate each story, implementation-summary.md
- **Stage 5 — Testing (TEA audit):** Test against requirements, evaluate non-functional requirements, assess quality → PASS / PASS-WITH-FOLLOWUPS / REMEDIATE
- **Stage 6 — Release:** Operator decision: SHIP or NO-SHIP
- **Quick path vs full pipeline:** Quick path skips research; used for features and bug fixes
- **Full artifact structure:** research-artifacts/, planning-artifacts/, implementation-artifacts/, test-artifacts/ per project
- **Daily CI update cron:** Automated competitive intelligence collector, weekly CI update
- **Document processing pipeline:** Contract summarizer (PDF), meeting notes processor, proposal generator
- **Code review automation:** Pre-review checklist (security, quality, docs, testing), automated on git commit
- **Client communication:** Automated status updates (drafts only), meeting prep generator
Notable Patterns
The 75-minute case study is the chapter's centerpiece. At 10:15 AM, an operator requests CSV export via WhatsApp. Kelly Router creates the project record in 5 seconds, routes to project-lead with quick-path flag, and confirms receipt. Planning completes at 10:21, implementation at 11:15, TEA audit at 11:30 with PASS-WITH-FOLLOWUPS (edge case noted), and a release decision is sent at 11:31. The entire loop, including operator communication, takes 76 minutes.
TEA (Test, Evaluate, Assess) audit is the testing gate. Unlike simple pass/fail, TEA produces three outcomes: PASS (ship it), PASS-WITH-FOLLOWUPS (ship but track issues), REMEDIATE (fix first). This nuance matters — not everything is binary, and deferring minor issues with visibility is often better than blocking release.
The pipeline script pattern — each stage has an entry script that creates directories, writes intake metadata, and sets the initial gate state. Scripts live in /clawd/scripts/ and are called by the router at each phase transition.
Related
[[software-factory]], [[cis-pipeline]], [[tea-audit]], [[kelly-router]], [[pipeline-stages]], [[quick-path]], [[full-pipeline]], [[ralph-protocol]], [[artifact-pattern]], [[ship-or-no-ship]]