Six steps to build an agent's working environment for the SDLC, from acceptance criteria and permissions to tests, persistent state, and outcome evaluation.
Contract
Define a small task, acceptance criteria, verification, scope, and an owner.
Context
Use AGENTS.md as the map to rules, architecture, and examples, and prepare a reproducible environment.
Tools
Connect tools with isolation, least privilege, argument validation, and a check against duplicate writes.
Loop
Plan, act, and check. Persist progress and evidence, with limits on time, cost, and retries.
Evidence
Require tests, a security check, and a review of the change. Match approval and rollback to the risk.
Evaluation
Compare results on representative tasks, and re-evaluate when the model, rules, or tools change.