Release Validation Gates: What Stands Between a Change and Production

The automated gate an agent change has to clear — why it is statistical rather than boolean, the agent-specific checks no generic pipeline runs (tool contracts, permission diffs, trifecta legs, version-tuple pinning), where cloud posture and vulnerability scanners actually fit, and the limits of gating known-bad.

Content current as of 2026-09.

Lessons

1. The gate as an artifact
2. The statistical core: gating a system that answers differently
3. The agent-specific checks nobody else will tell you to run
4. Where the cloud services actually fit
5. Designing your own gate — and its limits