Remote Coding Agents: The Approval Loop

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Prompt

You describe the task from anywhere — often a phone. “Add rate limiting to the API and update the tests.” That's the whole kickoff.

drag orbit · wheel/pinch zoom

Lifecycle Control

Step walks the satellite through each lifecycle state. Reject fires the revise loop: the change bounces from review back to Build/Test with your feedback attached.

Approval Policy

ALWAYS ASK — every diff waits for a human

Risk exposure10%

Throughput35%

Human touchpointsHigh

What a cloud sandbox actually is

The agent gets a disposable, isolated dev environment in the cloud: your repo cloned, dependencies installed, tests runnable — but walled off from production, your laptop, and your credentials. If it breaks something, it breaks a container that gets thrown away. That isolation is what makes “start a build from your phone and walk away” safe at all.

Why diff/PR review is the safety layer

The agent never pushes straight to main — it produces a reviewable diff.
A diff is a checkpoint: you see exactly what changed, file by file, before anything merges.
CI runs on the diff, so tests vouch for behavior while you vouch for intent.
Reject ≠ failure: it re-enters Build/Test with your notes — that's the revise loop.

When is auto-approve acceptable?

Low risk: docs, comments, formatting, dependency bumps with lockfile checks.
Reversible: a bad merge can be reverted in one click with no data loss.
Well-tested: strong CI coverage on the touched paths, all green.

Anything touching auth, payments, migrations, or deletion should always ask — slide the policy and watch risk climb as touchpoints drop.

The mobile kickoff workflow

Fire the prompt from your phone — coffee line, train, wherever.
Cloud sandbox spins up; build and tests run unattended.
Your phone buzzes when the diff is ready — not before.
Skim the diff, approve or send it back — about an hour of compute, one minute of you.