The Studio Controller
The Studio Controller is the one overseeing agent of a studio. Where the studio's other agents each do a job, the Controller briefs them, checks each answer they give, oversees the Fully Autonomous loop, remembers what it learned, and holds periodic sync sessions with you. It is part of the Enterprise plan; the studio owner turns it on in Trust Settings. Its role in each phase of the delivery loop is set out on The Studio Controller page.
What it does
Checks every Auto Pilot run — after each stage it judges what the stage's agent made against the task, the intent and your definitions of ready and done: completed, meaningful feedback, a query for a person, or rejected. A rejection asks the agent once more with its reasons; what is still wrong is left for a person. Each verdict is a row on the run's review list.
Watches the Fully Autonomous loop — it logs why each intent was taken, in fixed words from the facts the loop ordered on. A fifteen-minute watch that wakes a loop whose run was lost is built but not yet switched on; until it is, the loop's own wakes carry on as before. It never resumes, re-dispatches or stops a run itself.
Holds syncs with you — in any mode an owner or a reviewer can ask for a sync whenever they want; in Fully Autonomous mode it also opens one every few runs or days, or when something needs you (the loop finished, hit its ceiling, held packages). A sync covers what happened, what it decided and why, what it assumed, what does not add up, what it needs you to decide, how the agents did, and whether the direction is still right. Anyone can answer; what approvers say reaches its next check.
Keeps a memory you manage — short notes it writes from its checks and syncs, and notes you add: assumptions, how agents tend to behave, facts about the studio, lessons and your direction. The owner edits, pins and retires them. They reach its prompts as notes, never as instructions.
Briefs the coding agent — on a work package it composes the block at the head of the coding agent's brief: what matters most, how the result will be judged, what to watch for, what not to change, and what to ask rather than guess. You read it in full before you start the run, and can send without it. It is written into a repository only when GitHub states the repository private. Afterwards it can read the pull request against what it asked.
It never approves or merges. The Controller never approves, merges or overrides the reviewer agents or a person: its verdicts can only hold work back, and its syncs ask. What else it does, composing a brief, keeping notes and (once switched on) waking a lost run, decides nothing. A person decides every gate; the reviewer agents judge the Definition of Done; merging stays with GitHub or a person. Its nickname, if you give it one, is display-only.
Where to find it
Trust Settings — its card sits straight under Operating Mode: the switch, the nickname, the sync cadence and whether the Fully Autonomous loop waits for an open sync. Only the studio owner changes them.
The toolbar — beside the trust level at the top of every Studio page, the Controller's mark with a dot: filled when it is on, hollow when it is off and dashed when the plan holds it back, with the word On, Off or Held on a wide screen. On a phone the dot sits on the trust button's corner. Press it for a sentence on its state and a link to its page.
The Studio Controller page — its status, the open sync, its decision log and its memory. An owner or a reviewer presses Ask for a sync now there, in any operating mode. The Autonomous loop page links to it.
A work package — the coding form shows its guidance block where the Controller runs, and Ask the Studio Controller reads the pull request against what it asked.
What it costs
Every call is on the studio's AI keys and counts against the run's limits, the loop's ceiling and the monthly budget: one check a stage, at most one more ask per re-briefable stage, one sync summary a sync, one brief block a package, and one more call each time you press Ask the Studio Controller about a pull request. The run's estimate says so before it starts.