Idea → merged.

1. You set the scope. Grill it, report the bug, or call a spike yourself. After that, agents run on their own until they hit an escalation point.
2. Every loop has a cap. Three rounds locally, five on the PR. A cap, scope growth or an outside block comes back to you, and only you raise a cap.
3. Gates run on the other vendor. Reviewers are always told someone else wrote the code.
4. One builder per worktree. Builders commit, only the lead pushes, and merges happen on your word.
5. Smallest complete change. Tests prove behaviour, never that a line exists.

Quick mode is for urgent work. It keeps the build and the cleaner gate, skips the plan and review gates, and flags mutation testing to run after rollout. Reviews that still land on the PR get babysat as normal.

Bug mode starts from your report. The agent reproduces it, tickets it after the fact and fixes it test-first. There's no grill, spec or plan, and the gates match quick mode.

Spike mode is yours to call. Agents never choose it over the normal flow. It tests whether an idea works at all. It skips the grill, the plan and every gate. Each idea gets a branch and a sub agent, you judge what comes back, and a spike that proves out integrates in standard mode.