CI/CD as a validation loop the agent can retry against
Every probabilistic step has a deterministic gate behind it. The gates are fast and return structured failures, so the agent can converge without a human, and humans sit on the loop at the risk tiers that need them.
Requirement
Turn CI/CD into a validation loop: fast deterministic gates an agent can retry against until it passes, with humans on the loop rather than in it.
Design choices
Failures are structured (rule id, file, line, fix hint), never a log wall.
Retry budget of three, then a page with the evidence attached.
Promotion is tier-aware; provenance is checked at admission, not only in CI.
Evidence and gap
Built in Hangar: Tekton and Pipelines-as-Code, a releaseGuardrails registry, tier-aware promotion in Glidepath, cosign plus Rekor verification. Real bugs found: a fail-open sast check and an index-lag race. Proposal only: the agent-facing failure schema.