Change: Releases, Infrastructure as Code and AI-Authored Change

All courses / AI Operations / Module 2 / Chapter 8

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

List the six properties that make a change pipeline a control and not only a convenience
Explain what the provenance of an AI-authored change records and why it stores references and not an engineer's typed words
Map the settings of a GitOps sync policy to action classes and ceilings
Define a standard change class that an agent may draft and a pipeline may release

Key concepts

Provenance of change: The record of a change's origin: the author's identity and whether it is a person or an agent, the mandate and level, the model, the instructions and inputs as references, and what was not tested. It differs from build provenance, which attests what a build platform produced.
Protected paths: The pipeline definitions, policy files, reviewer lists and agents' mandate manifests, together the change system's own configuration, plus the gate itself and the reconciler's policy objects. Level 4 Autonomous is never used for an edit to them.
Computed change class: The class of a change is computed by the gate from the diff, the plan and the target, not declared by the author; a declared class lower than the computed one is denied.
The reconciler as a change actor: A GitOps engine that applies is an actor in the change system whose identity is its reach. Its sync policy is its mandate: automated sync and self-heal at Level 3 Bounded only for catalogued classes, and prune never at Level 4 where it would delete data.
Oversight-quality measures: Measures of the review and not the reviewer, reported per team: seeded-error catch rate of at least 0.85 per quarter, review time against diff size, a rejection and rework rate between 5 and 30 per cent, at most 5 open drafts per reviewer, and the change-correlated incident rate.

Interactive exercises

Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.

Interactive exercise 1 · Match

A sync policy is a mandate

Match each setting of a GitOps reconciler with the action class and ceiling that the chapter's table assigns to it.

Interactive exercise 2 · Sort

Degrees of delegation in change

Sort each O3 Change activity by the degree of delegation at which the chapter's table places it.

Teaching plan

20 min	The teacher walks the change pipeline: diff as the only route, identified author, checks computed outside the author, release by pipeline credential, independent verification and a record, with the instruments the chapter reads as asking for these properties.
20 min	Participants read the change record CHG-NR-2028-0007 and identify the provenance fields, the reviewer rule and what the record does not claim.
20 min	Presentation of state engines and the sync-policy table; participants assign an action class and a ceiling to automated sync, self-heal, prune and suspend.
15 min	Discussion of review load as a humane design question, using the oversight-quality table and the rule that measures are reported for teams.
35 min	Exercise: participants define a standard change class.
10 min	Debrief: what can be undone for each class defined, and who can stop it without approval.

Discussion

A rejection and rework rate near zero for a quarter is read as a signal of rubber-stamping. What else could explain it, and how would seeded errors tell the explanations apart?
A provenance record that captures how an engineer used an agent can also be used to watch the engineer. How do the two organisations' agreements shape what the record may store?
With seven platform engineers, Nordvik Region has the same people drafting and reviewing. What does the Region do about it, and what would you do in a team of that size?

Written exercise

Exercise · 35 minutes

A standard change class an agent may author

Following the practical guide, pick a kind of change that your organisation, or Hansa Mutual in the chapter's example of certificate renewal outside critical functions, has made by hand at least 20 times in the last 12 months with no change-correlated Tier 1 or Tier 2 incident. Define the class as a file: eligible service tiers, what the diff may and may not touch so that the gate can compute membership, the independent probe that verifies it, the tested rollback with its date and result, the release window, the rule that suspends the class, the approving decision record, and an expiry.

Deliverable: A change-class definition with eligibility rules computable from the diff, probe, tested rollback, window, suspension rule, approver and expiry.

Your work

Self-test

Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.

What is the chapter's ceiling for the prune setting of a reconciler, which deletes what has left Git?
Show the answer
C. A named person for stateful kinds, and never Level 4 where it would delete data
Prune belongs to the delete action class. The sync-policy table requires a named person for stateful kinds and never Level 4 where data would be deleted, in line with the prohibition on irreversible actions on production data.
Who may review an agent-authored change to a Tier 1 service, according to the controls that keep review real?
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A. A named person who is neither the requester nor the drafter
The first control is a named reviewer who is neither requester nor drafter. A machine reviewing a machine's change is acceptable only if independent, and the engineer who requested the draft is not independent of it.
What does the oversight-quality table set as the default cap on open drafts per reviewer, and what happens when it is exceeded?
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D. At most 5, after which drafting by the agent pauses for that reviewer's queue
The default is at most 5 open drafts; above it the agent's drafting is paused for that queue. The chapter treats this as protecting both the control and the people, since an overloaded reviewer approves more than they can check.