# Agent Autonomy Score

> A transparent autonomy gate for deciding when a coding agent can work independently and when a human needs to stay close.

Published: 2026-06-07
Updated: 2026-08-03
Canonical URL: https://aidanmarshall.ai/projects/agent-autonomy-score/
Repository: https://github.com/Aidan2111/agent-autonomy-score

## Context

Coding agents can process feedback, edit code, run tests, and open pull requests. Teams still need a practical way to decide how much autonomy a particular change deserves.


## Problem

Treating every change the same slows down presentation work and gives risky changes too much freedom. The gate needed to distinguish a copy edit from a persistence migration without pretending to understand the entire codebase.


## Approach

The CLI reads an implementation intent, a unified diff, or both. It calculates visible engineering signals and recommends one of three collaboration modes.

- Unsupervised for low-risk work with normal pull-request review.
- Guided Autonomy when a human should approve the approach before implementation.
- Pair Programming when the human should remain actively involved.

```text
autonomy-score --intent issue.txt --diff change.diff

Autonomy Score: 8/10 (High Risk)
Recommended mode: Pair Programming
```

## Implementation

The deterministic scorer checks intent language, algorithmic risk, directory spread, state and persistence changes, auth, billing, pipelines, and whether risky production changes include tests. The output works in a terminal, a pull-request summary, or a CI threshold.


## Tradeoffs and limitations

The scorer favors a policy teams can inspect and tune. It will miss codebase-specific risks and flag some safe changes. It routes work to the right review mode; it does not approve a merge.


## What it demonstrates

The project turns a vague governance question into a tested developer tool with explicit stopping points for automation. Calibration against merged, corrected, and rolled-back agent changes is the next step.


## Technology

Python, Agentic AI, Risk scoring

## Verification

- Public repository: https://github.com/Aidan2111/agent-autonomy-score