CTO Sortie Workflows

Autonomous SDLC workflows for the CTO agent, powered by Sortie.

Architecture

.ai/agents/cascadeguard/
├── ORG.md                          # Shared org context (all agents)
├── workflows/                      # Generic SDLC workflows (tool-agnostic)
│   ├── plan.md
│   ├── implement.md
│   ├── review.md
│   ├── bugfix.md
│   └── triage.md
└── cto/
    ├── identity.yaml               # Agent identity
    ├── JOB_DESCRIPTION.md          # Role definition
    ├── AGENTS.md                   # Full agent instructions
    └── sortie/                     # Sortie workflow files
        ├── README.md               # This file
        ├── PLAN.workflow.md        # Plan creation workflow
        ├── TRIAGE.workflow.md      # Issue triage workflow
        ├── IMPLEMENT.workflow.md   # Implementation workflow
        ├── BUGFIX.workflow.md      # Bug fix workflow
        └── REVIEW.workflow.md      # PR review workflow

hosts/
├── mac.env                         # Host-specific env for local Mac
├── mac.md                          # Host documentation
├── k8s-lab.env                     # Host-specific env for k8s cluster
└── k8s-lab.md                      # Host documentation

Layered Context Model

Each Sortie workflow composes context from multiple layers:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Sortie WORKFLOW.md (front matter)      │  ← Sortie-specific config
│  tracker, hooks, agent, ci_feedback     │    (not shared with other tools)
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Prompt template (body)                 │  ← References shared context:
│  - Identity (identity.yaml)            │
│  - Org context (ORG.md)               │
│  - SDLC (sdlc.md)                     │
│  - Workflow steps (workflows/*.md)     │
│  - Steering docs (.ai/steering/*)     │
│  - Issue data (Go template vars)       │
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  Generic workflows (workflows/*.md)     │  ← Shared across tools
│  plan, implement, review, bugfix, etc.  │    (BMAD, Sortie, manual)
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  ORG.md                                │  ← Shared across all agents
│  repos, team, artefacts, conventions    │    in this org
├─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│  SDLC, steering, skills                │  ← Shared across all orgs
│  .ai/projects/cascadeguard/sdlc.md     │    in this workspace
│  .ai/steering/*.md                     │
│  .ai/skills/*/SKILL.md                 │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘

All paths in prompt templates are relative to workspace root. The workspace root itself is configured per-host via env vars.

Workflows

Workflow	Watches	Hands off to	Purpose
TRIAGE	`triage`	`backlog`	Assess new issues, add layers/priority
PLAN	`backlog`	`todo`	Create implementation plans
IMPLEMENT	`in-progress`	`review`	Build the solution, open PR
BUGFIX	`in-progress` + `label:bug`	`review`	Diagnose and fix bugs
REVIEW	`review`	`done`	CTO review of PRs

Running

Per-host configuration

Each host has an .env file in hosts/ that sets the workspace root and any host-specific overrides:

# On Mac
sortie --env-file hosts/mac.env .ai/agents/cascadeguard/cto/sortie/IMPLEMENT.workflow.md
 
# On k8s-lab (workspace mounted at /workspace)
sortie --env-file hosts/k8s-lab.env .ai/agents/cascadeguard/cto/sortie/IMPLEMENT.workflow.md

Per-repo targeting

Each workflow defaults to cascadeguard/cascadeguard-app. Override via env var:

# Target a different repo
SORTIE_TRACKER_PROJECT=cascadeguard/cascadeguard \
  sortie --env-file hosts/mac.env .ai/agents/cascadeguard/cto/sortie/IMPLEMENT.workflow.md

Or create a per-repo .env file:

# hosts/mac-cascadeguard-core.env
SORTIE_WORKSPACE_ROOT=/Users/craig/src/workspace-root
WORKSPACE_ROOT=/Users/craig/src/workspace-root
SORTIE_TRACKER_PROJECT=cascadeguard/cascadeguard

The hooks use $SORTIE_TRACKER_PROJECT to derive the clone URL, so changing the project env var is all that’s needed to retarget a workflow.

Running all CTO workflows for a repo

for f in .ai/agents/cascadeguard/cto/sortie/*.workflow.md; do
  sortie --env-file hosts/mac.env "$f" &
done

Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Description
`SORTIE_GITHUB_TOKEN`	Yes	GitHub PAT with repo access
`ANTHROPIC_API_KEY`	Yes	Anthropic API key for Claude
`SORTIE_TRACKER_PROJECT`	No	Override target repo (default: `cascadeguard/cascadeguard-app`)
`SORTIE_WORKSPACE_ROOT`	No	Override workspace root path

GitHub Org Project Board

Sortie’s GitHub adapter works with repo-level issues (label-based state machine), not GitHub org-level Projects (ProjectV2). The org project board at https://github.com/orgs/cascadeguard/projects/2 is useful for:

Board-level visibility — CTO/CEO/CMO see cross-repo status in one view
Strategic planning — high-level items live on the org board
Sub-task decomposition — org board items get broken into repo-level issues for implementation

The workflow is:

Board creates strategic items on the org project board
CTO/CEO decomposes into repo-level issues with appropriate labels
Sortie picks up repo-level issues and runs the SDLC workflows
Status flows back to the org board via GitHub’s project automation

This means board-level interactions (strategy, prioritisation, cross-repo coordination) happen on the org project, while Sortie handles the per-repo implementation lifecycle.

Extending to Other Agents

To add workflows for another agent (e.g., full-stack engineer):

Create sortie/ directory under the agent’s folder
Copy and adapt workflow files, changing:
- Identity references to the new agent
- Budget and concurrency limits
- query_filter to scope to appropriate issues (e.g., label:frontend)
The generic workflows in workflows/ and ORG.md are shared — no duplication needed

Extending to Other Repos

Override SORTIE_TRACKER_PROJECT via env var — no workflow file changes needed. The hooks use $SORTIE_TRACKER_PROJECT to derive the clone URL automatically.

For repos with different toolchains, you may need to adjust self_review.verification_commands in the IMPLEMENT and BUGFIX workflows (e.g., go test ./... instead of npm run test).

Techcle Wiki

Explorer

README