Proof
Inspect the work,not the demo
Every surface here can be inspected in a first conversation: status, elapsed time, build effort, where a rule stopped a write and why, what was recorded. What follows is the real thing: Fixie, Inc.'s engineer skill-review workflow, published as a customer case.
- Status
- Live after one month
- Build effort
- Two person-weeks
- Evidence
- Every run on the record
Engineer skill management
Live after one month, two person-weeks of build
The AI interviews engineers about their work history. It pushes back when answers are thin, splits a manager's free-form comments into individual action items, and flags likely leavers from past sessions. Judgment work, not a macro.
- Inputs were uneven interviews and free-form comments, not clean forms
- Publishing always waits for manager review
- Every run sits in a tamper-proof record
On a headless system the evidence is the records themselves — and they can be shown as they are. Three of them below: the workflow's review gate as defined, one run as the system recorded it, and the surfaces you can demand from any vendor.
From the workflow's definition — the review gate
- ProcessDraft → generated → owner review → manager review
Every sheet walks the same path. The agent cannot reorder or skip it.
- ProcessOnly manager review leads to publishthe only path
A version that has not passed review cannot publish — the write is refused before commit.
- ProcessFlagged work goes back with comments
It is supplemented and reviewed again; nothing publishes from the flagged state.
A run, as the system recorded it
- Workflow
- Engineer skill review
- Status
- Production
- Built in
- two person-weeks
held = asked and continued · blocked = write refused
- 09:14Follow-up askedheld by quality rule
A thin answer hit the quality rule. The agent asked for project scope before touching the sheet.
- 09:22Publish attempt rejectedblocked by process rule
Publishing was requested before review. The write never landed.
- 09:31Approval openedwaiting on manager
The pending change, its reason, and the affected record went to the manager.
- 09:36Commit recordedsealed outside the agent
The approved write was stored with who, what, why, and when.
For the skeptical reader
How to tell this is runtime control, not model self-review
Ask any vendor for three surfaces. Perstack exposes all three.
The definition
the workflow, as a written document
What data exists, what operations exist, what can fail and how — readable before anything runs.
The run
the run history, step by step
Status, messages, tool calls, retries, required approvals, blocked reasons — per run, as it happened.
The verdict
success, business stop, or system failure
A business-rule violation is returned before commit — not apologized for by the model afterwards.
If a demo cannot show a rejected write before commit, it has not reached commit control yet.
In discussion — not yet live