A new feature has to be built
Before writing it you have to understand what it touches, and whether something similar had already been done.
Software Factory Brain
The context your agents are missing
The reason behind a technical choice already exists, scattered across code, closed tickets and documents. Brain holds it together, anchored to the lines that implement it, and you query it from your coding agent.
session.pytokens.pythrottle.pymiddleware.pylegacy/sso.py
REQ-01expires after 30 minsession.py 88-140exact anchor
REQ-02logout on every devicesession.py 210-244
REQ-03slows down after a failed attemptthrottle.py 12-58
78% with a requirement · 22% undocumented
todayMarch 2024
DEC-0212signed JWTsactivesuperseded
DEC-0418opaque tokens
session.py 88-140confirmedfrom: code · GitHub pull requests · uploaded files · issue tracker · monitoringqueryable today from Claude Code, from Brain Studio and from assistants like Claude, ChatGPT or Copilot
The three moments when the problem shows up
The code accumulates, the reasoning does not. With agents the gap grows: more changes, and no trace of how they got there.
The system has to be understood
A migration, an inherited system, a supplier changing. The code is there, the reason is not.
Someone leaves
They retire or change job, and the only reliable account of how that part works walks out with them.
When the session ends, the trace of how the agent got there is left to no one.
What Brain does in your software factory
It starts with requirements, because that is where the value shows first.
› userI have to rebuild the authentication module. Which requirements sit behind it?
search Brain: requirements for services/auth3 requirements · 1 decision
read the linked records12 anchors into the code
› agent
+--------+---------------------------------------+--------------------+ | req | behaviour | anchored to | +--------+---------------------------------------+--------------------+ | REQ-01 | the session expires after 30 min idle | session.py 88-140 | | REQ-02 | logging out revokes every device | session.py 210-244 | | REQ-03 | a failed attempt slows the next ones | throttle.py 12-58 | +--------+---------------------------------------+--------------------+
22% of the module has no requirement explaining itservices/auth/legacy/
› userAnd why are the tokens opaque?
read DEC-0418 and its sourcesISS-0077 · supersedes DEC-0212
› agentImmediate revocation, after ISS-0077 (logging out did not close sessions on other devices, March).
DEC-0418, proposed in a Claude Code session on 12 Sep., confirmed by a person on the team on 13 Sep.
It supersedes DEC-0212, JWTs from 2024.
3 steps
Without context, an agent rediscovers the codebase every session, and it does it at your expense. With Brain it starts from what the team has already confirmed.
What a CTO asks first
What we usually find
Three questions you can answer without us. In the companies we talk to, at least one answer is almost always missing.
- How long a new person takes to make their first change on their own, on a repository they did not write.
- When someone asks why a technical choice was made, where they go to look, and how often they end up asking a colleague.
- How many business rules exist only inside the code, with no document explaining them.
If this is not your problem we will say so and stop there.
What happens in the 30 minutes
- 1You pick a module you already have in production.
- 2We feed it to Brain and look together at what comes out: which requirements sit behind it, and where they got lost.
- 3You keep the notes from the session, even if nothing comes of it.