Software factory

A software factory is an assembly line whose product is merged code. The happy path looks like: a ticket or spec goes in; agents plan, implement, test, and open a review; a human (or a policy) merges.

That's a real, useful picture. It isn't the same picture as an agent workplace. A workplace can contain a factory. A factory doesn't automatically give you a household computer, a bookkeeper, or a farm of non-coding desks.

Why the words get borrowed

"Factory" is the strongest industrial metaphor in circulation for agents that ship software. Vendors use it as a product name. Commentators use it for any multi-agent coding setup. The result is that "software factory" now names both an idea (this page) and several products (covered in our internal landscape notes).

Chatticus doesn't need to own the phrase. We need to be able to say: we're building a workplace; a software factory is one kind of work that workplace can take on, not the definition of the product.