SUTRA Architecture & Overview
SUTRA is an AI-Native Engineering Control Plane developed by AchintAI. It provides autonomous AI coding agents with bounded authority, cryptographic commit provenance, and an auditable path from task to merge.
Autonomous agents excel at writing code, running local tests, and formulating technical solutions. SUTRA governs how they operate within your engineering organization: enforcing short-lived session leases, evaluating automated CI verification, blocking self-approval, and ensuring that merge authority remains governed by human review.
Ephemeral AgentSession tokens with 120-second idle timeouts.
Agents cannot approve their own pull requests or trigger merges.
Cryptographic linkage between Git commits, AgentSessions, and Tasks.
Multi-pillar checks and human owner sign-off required for branch merge.
1. Intent Task
Assigns bounded engineering objective, selects target repository, and defines approval constraints.
View all 7 lifecycle steps in static text format
- 1. Intent Task (Human Owner): Assigns bounded engineering objective, selects target repository, and defines approval constraints. Rule: Human identity holds root governance authority.
- 2. Agent Auth (AI Agent): Authenticates via Agent Token and receives a short-lived 15-minute AgentSession JWT. Rule: Possession of token is bound strictly to target repository.
- 3. Git Engine (Git Engine & Substrate): Accepts session-bound git push or coordinates branch updates with upstream Git substrate (e.g., GitHub). Validates token per-request. Rule: Direct force-pushes to protected branches are rejected by policy.
- 4. Change Evidence (Evidence Core): System creates an authoritative Change record tracking commit SHA, changed files, and AST diffs. Rule: Evidence cannot be altered or bypassed.
- 5. Automated CI (CI Runner): Executes automated test suites, linting, and policy checks against the exact commit SHA. Rule: 100% required checks must pass for branch protection clearance.
- 6. Human Sign-off (Human Reviewer): Human reviews diff evidence, resolves inline threads, and provides authoritative approval. Rule: AI Agents CANNOT approve their own Pull Requests.
- 7. Protected Merge (Merge Controller): Executes verified merge into target branch via substrate API/gateway after human approval, records commit SHA, and revokes session. Rule: Protected branches only accept verified, human-approved merges.
A critical architectural distinction in SUTRA is the boundary between the Control Plane and the Code Substrate. SUTRA does not replace GitHub; SUTRA governs what autonomous agents do across GitHub.
Issues temporary 15-minute AgentSession tokens tied to specific tasks with automatic heartbeat extensions.
Restricts agent permissions via explicit grants (e.g. repository.read, repository.write).
Binds commit SHAs to the originating AgentSession and Task, distinguishing agent vs. human authorship.
Enforces multi-pillar governance, CI check completion, and mandatory human approval before merge execution.
SUTRA strictly enforces separate runtime identities for human engineers and autonomous agents. Agents operate through bounded, short-lived sessions (15-minute leases with idle timeouts) and cannot approve their own work or authorize merges.
AGENTS.md or .cursorrules provide prompt guidance for coding models — they are NOT the security boundary. SUTRA server-side token authentication, capability checks, commit provenance verification, and human review gates are enforced at the API and control-plane layer. Removing an instruction file does NOT remove or bypass SUTRA governance.Follow this 5-step sequence to link your repository, connect your autonomous coding agent via Model Context Protocol (MCP), and execute governed engineering workflows.
Navigate to the SUTRA Repositories page (/repositories) and select an authorized GitHub repository. SUTRA indexes branch protection settings, establishes webhook listeners for CI checks, and prepares the audit log.
Add SUTRA's native Streamable HTTP MCP endpoint to your coding agent configuration (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code, Antigravity, or Cline).
The agent initiates OAuth 2.1 PKCE against /oauth/token or authenticates via an Agent Token to receive a temporary 15-minute AgentSession lease.
sutra_session_...•Idle Timeout: 120s•Absolute TTL: 15mThe agent claims the task objective via SUTRA MCP tools, makes code modifications locally, and submits commits with cryptographic provenance:
When all automated CI checks pass, the agent transitions the PR to the human review queue. The human owner verifies diff evidence, resolves any open discussion threads, and authorizes the merge.
Explore in-depth documentation modules to configure your coding environments, inspect the tool schema catalog, and review security policies.
Step-by-step setup for Cursor, Claude Code, Cline, and Antigravity IDE.
Detailed operational workflows, lease heartbeats, and 21 MCP tool schemas.
REST endpoints, request/response payloads, and authentication headers.
Four-pillar review engine, cryptographic provenance, and human gate rules.