Where does the autonomous-kickoff trigger layer live?

[kyle-sexton]

The single biggest 2→3 blocker: nothing turns an external signal (new issue, PR comment, cron, channel message) into a running agent. Decide the home and shape of the trigger layer: ci-workflows reusable (GitHub-event-driven, the vendor-converged label/assignment pattern)? a new plugin? the future runner repo? routines//schedule? Claude Tag channel monitoring? Evidence: explore-plugins-inventory.md gap 2→3 #1; RESEARCH-headless-agents.md invocation-adapter + queue seams; RESEARCH-product-surface.md routines/Tag maturity.

[kyle-sexton]

🔒 claim: session-8acf2066 (Boris Post Integration)

[kyle-sexton]

Resolved: the trigger layer is a contract, not a place — thin per-source signal adapters normalize every external signal into the work-item queue (existing race-safe lease + AFK/HITL classes), drained by one dispatch entrypoint (work-items:work autonomous mode); the executor sits behind the contract (claude -p / claude-code-action today, runner repo later — #244 swaps the executor, adapters untouched).

Adapters today: GitHub events → ci-workflows reusable (runner-policy admission required); cron/schedule → routines via /schedule, including data-source polling detectors (artifact step 3: Tag monitors 'a channel or a data source' — the data-source half lands here); agent-internal → existing skills. Deferred with trigger: Tag channel adapter (Enterprise/Team-only, Slack-only beta — verified via Anthropic announcement; trigger: plan gains Tag or platform expansion). No queue bypass for any signal class — the audit trail is the trust loop (Boris's step-3 trap).

Basis: one-mechanism-per-concern; OCP (new signal = new adapter, no core edit); headless-agents research separates invocation-adapter and queue+lease seams; keeps #244 clean either way. Working record: .work/ai-adoption-ladder/design-threads.md T1. Dispatch POLICY (which classes auto-dispatch, per-class gates) belongs to #243.

[kyle-sexton]

Source anchors (added for durability — the design threads re-anchor to this artifact):

• Boris Cherny, "Step & your role" (Jul 16, 2026) — Google Doc (reliable copy): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R91ayvj7uvlxgNi--__2-Bf3w8x5r1nF-xIBN7ds8Ns/edit
• Original claude.ai artifact (intermittently erroring as of 2026-07-17): https://claude.ai/code/artifact/bfdfaef9-bc62-4dfe-ba9e-c58a26c9accf