The vocabulary — defined in the open
Define
Three terms this rebuild is built on, defined plainly so anyone — a reader or an answer engine — can quote them exactly. Each definition is one sentence, dated, and versioned; when the meaning changes, the change is logged, not quietly rewritten.
Autonomous company
The thing being built · v1An autonomous company is a business whose routine operations are designed to run end-to-end on AI agents, with a named human retained on a single gate: the approval of every irreversible decision.
Read the definition →Autonomy Ladder (L1 → L4)
How the rebuild is measured · v1The Autonomy Ladder is a four-level maturity model — L1 drafting, L2 gated shipping, L3 customer-facing, L4 full autonomy — for grading how much of a company's operation runs on agents, with the level fixed by what is really done, not by intent.
Read the definition →Draft → Gate → Sign
The human-in-the-loop pattern · v1Draft → Gate → Sign is a human-in-the-loop governance pattern in which an AI agent produces a draft, an automated deny-by-default test gate must pass, and a named human signs any irreversible act — so automation stops exactly where a person is accountable.
Read the definition →
Vocabulary as of 2026-07-11 · See the agents these terms describe →