The reference factory

The scenario Layover is designed and sized against:

flowchart LR
    human([human]) --> analyst
    clock([clock · hourly]) --> scanner[pr_scanner] --> analyst
    analyst --> investigator & kusto --> joinA{{join = all}} --> analyst
    analyst -->|work item| developer
    developer --> tester & reviewer --> joinB{{join = all}} --> developer
    developer -->|both approved| publisher
    publisher -.->|books a Layover| later[["due later"]] -.-> follower
    clock2([clock · 45m]) --> follower --> developer

    classDef jn fill:#f2e9fd,stroke:#7a44b0,color:#2a1240
    classDef lay fill:#e8f6ee,stroke:#2f7d4f,color:#0f2e1c
    class joinA,joinB jn
    class later lay

A request is investigated and backed with telemetry, turned into a work item, implemented, then tested and reviewed in a loop that turns until both agents approve — after which a pull request is opened in Azure DevOps. A second, scheduled pipeline reviews open pull requests once an hour. A third resumes work the publisher set down, so a chain can wait days for review comments without holding a process open.

The full walkthrough, with the hop arithmetic and the reasoning behind each decision, lives beside the factory itself:

examples/workitem-factory/README.md

Why it is worth reading

It is the smallest factory that exercises everything awkward:

• Concurrent fan-out to read-only agents that inspect without clobbering each other.
• Two rendezvous joins, both landing on an agent that an ordinary edge also reaches.
• A loop of unknown length, which is what makes sizing Hops a real problem rather than a formality.
• Three entry paths into the same mesh: one manual, one on a clock, one resuming work that was deliberately set down.
• Conditional prompts, so the tester runs a remote suite only when asked.

The part people get wrong

The default max_hops = 8 is enough for this factory's happy path and not enough for a single round of rework. The first rejection would exhaust the chain and leave half-repaired work in the workspace with nothing left to finish it.

That is not a bug in the defaults; it is what happens when a loop meets a depth budget. The example carries the arithmetic, and a regression test pins it:

flights = 2N + 6   (N test/review cycles, on the longer of the two entry paths)

See Pipelines and triggers.