Automation Level Behavior Guide
Reference for how commands and skills should adjust interaction ceremony based on the active automation level. The big-picture description of each level (and how to switch) is in PROJECT-ORCHESTRATION-HANDBOOK.md §7.1; this doc is the per-decision behavior table. Warp-drive’s level-specific behavior is in the handbook §7.2 and warp-drive-guide.md.
Detection
Read .claude/settings.local.json in the project directory. Look for _automation.active_level (1, 2, or 3). If not found or the file doesn’t exist, default to Level 1.
Level Principles
Level 1 — Supervised (default)
- Ask before every decision
- Show all options with explanations
- Wait for explicit confirmation before acting
- This is identical to pre-automation behavior
Level 2 — Trusted Dev
- Auto-proceed on safe, inferrable, or reversible decisions
- Still confirm destructive operations (force push, delete, overwrite)
- Still ask for subjective content (summaries, descriptions, priorities)
- Show each auto-decision inline as it happens
Level 3 — Autonomous
- Minimize prompts — only stop for destructive ops or subjective content
- Auto-infer from git context, branch names, file paths, commit history
- Batch auto-decisions into a summary rather than inline notifications
- Ask for: rebase conflicts, subjective writing, destructive operations
Transparency Format
Commands must show what was auto-decided so the user stays informed.
Level 2 — inline per decision:
> Auto (L2): Branch type set to `tooling/` (inferred from .claude/ changes)
> Auto (L2): Stashed 2 uncommitted files
Level 3 — batched summary:
> Auto (L3) decisions:
> - Branch type: `tooling/` (inferred from .claude/ changes)
> - Stashed 2 uncommitted files
> - Branch name: `tooling/automation-behavior`
Decision Classification
| Category | L1 | L2 | L3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Safe + inferrable | Ask | Auto, show | Auto, show |
| Reversible action | Ask | Auto, show | Auto, show |
| Subjective content | Ask | Ask | Ask |
| Destructive operation | Ask | Ask | Ask |
| Push to remote | Ask | Confirm | Auto (except main/master) |
| Conflict resolution | Ask | Ask | Ask |
| Requirement/AC tracking | Ask | Auto-update, show | Auto-update, show |
| Documentation housekeeping | Ask | Auto-update, show | Auto-update silently |
| Warp-drive continue to next task | Ask | Ask | Auto-continue, log |
| Warp-drive plan review | Ask | Ask | Auto-proceed, log |