# Run agents as an engineering team where nobody approves their own work

PaperChase agent use case (free feed entry), version 1.0. Source: [u/Efficient-Trick-4384 on r/AI_Agents](https://www.reddit.com/r/AI_Agents/comments/1xfwwpw/i_used_to_run_a_150person_engineering_org_now/), 2026-10-26.

## What they did

Each ticket carries acceptance criteria that double as the test. An agent writes the change, and a different step reads the CI results, checks the diff against each criterion and attaches a staging screenshot per criterion before anything merges. Work in progress is capped at 15 items and blocked work sits in its own column where people can see it. They also track cost per story: a median of about $36, with one in ten stories costing over $147, and review taking about 11% of total spend.

## Worth knowing

Two rules carry most of the weight: the agent that did the work never signs it off, and every acceptance criterion needs evidence (a CI line or a screenshot). Tracking cost per story shows which kinds of tickets are worth giving to agents at all. Figures are as reported by the author.

## Workflow template

```text
Apply this workflow to [your project]:
1. Rewrite your next ten tickets so each has numbered acceptance criteria a checker can verify
2. Give the writing agent and the reviewing agent separate prompts and separate permissions
3. Require one piece of evidence per criterion: a CI result, a test name or a staging screenshot
4. Cap work in progress and keep a Blocked column that a person checks daily
5. Log cost per ticket and look at the slowest, most expensive tenth every week
Stop and ask me before anything irreversible: deploys, payments, sends or deletes.
```

## Steps

1. **Rewrite your next ten tickets so each has numbered acceptance criteria.** Rewrite your next ten tickets so each has numbered acceptance criteria a checker can verify
2. **Give the writing agent and the reviewing agent separate prompts and se.** Give the writing agent and the reviewing agent separate prompts and separate permissions
3. **Require one piece of evidence per criterion: a CI result, a test name .** Require one piece of evidence per criterion: a CI result, a test name or a staging screenshot
4. **Cap work in progress and keep a Blocked column that a person checks da.** Cap work in progress and keep a Blocked column that a person checks daily
5. **Log cost per ticket and look at the slowest, most expensive tenth ever.** Log cost per ticket and look at the slowest, most expensive tenth every week

## Credit

Workflow reported by u/Efficient-Trick-4384 on r/AI_Agents: https://www.reddit.com/r/AI_Agents/comments/1xfwwpw/i_used_to_run_a_150person_engineering_org_now/

Summary and template written by PaperChaseWebb in our own words. Questions: mgmt@paperchasewebb.com