Unattended run: drop a file, wake to a reviewed branch — never merge

Daniel Firu’s Sep 18 walkthrough is the continuous-factory shape without the scoreboard: drop a request file into an inbox, leave, and come back to a pushed branch that never touched main. The open autonomous-sdlc-harness (Claude Code plugin + Node CLI) runs a daemon that creates an isolated git worktree, commits the prompt first as untrusted data, and launches one headless session. Phases: PLAN (writer ↔ parity / architecture / plan reviewers, loop to five rounds), BUILD (one task file per implementer, separate committer flipping checkboxes), REVIEW (parity, architecture, branch review with meta-review, then a skeptic that treats the reference itself as fallible), TEST (real browser, one fresh agent per case), CLOSE (docs, stats, harness self-friction log). Reviewers cannot edit files — findings only.

Two load-bearing decisions: state lives in git, not the model — phase ledgers and detail indices as committed checkboxes so resume, rate-limit pause, and watchdog restart are the same mechanism; and nobody reads more than they need — the orchestrator passes paths, never opens substantive diffs, so hundreds of dispatches don’t suffocate on context. Hardened mundanities matter: free-port probing, machine-global test-account locks, deny-floor permissions. Deliberate non-goals: no merge, no GitHub PR open, no multi-host fleet — forge-side branch protection is named as the real floor.

Why it matters for code review

Steady overnight throughput beats bursty session mastery when the morning artifact is a reviewable, multi-gated branch — and when human attention owns the merge button, not every intermediate turn. Firu’s FOMO antidote is a durable inbox-to-branch loop with independent reviewers and browser evidence; the review surface is the skeptic’s findings and the harness defect intake, not a chat scroll that claimed victory at 2am.