fabro/docs/internal/product/business-problem.md
Bryan Helmkamp 5fc9157017
refactor(workflow): remove retro stage (#230)
## Summary

Removes Fabro's automatic retro generation stage so workflow runs go
directly from execution to finalization and optional PR creation. This
drops the retro-specific crate, events, projection fields, config/API
knobs, and user-facing docs in favor of the existing durable run
observability surfaces.

## What Changed

- Deleted the `fabro-retro` crate and the workflow `retro` pipeline
phase, with finalization now consuming `Executed` state directly.
- Removed retro configuration and API surface area, including
`--no-retro`, `[run.execution].retros`, manifest `no_retro`,
`features.retros`, and run projection `retro*` fields.
- Retired typed `retro.*` events while keeping historical event logs
readable by deserializing retired retro event names as `Unknown`.
- Stopped appending retro sections to generated PR bodies and updated
docs, marketing copy, screenshots, and navigation to point users toward
observability/event-stream inspection.

## Testing

Not run during PR creation; this branch already contained the
implementation commit.

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2026-05-09 10:18:20 -04:00

1.2 KiB

The Problem Fabro Solves

Fabro exists for teams that have outgrown the prompt-act-review loop used by most AI coding tools.

Why that loop breaks

Interactive agent sessions work for small tasks, but they do not define a repeatable software process. In practice this creates four recurring problems:

  • The engineer must supervise the agent instead of defining the process once and reusing it.
  • There is no reliable gate between "the agent stopped" and "the work is ready."
  • Model choice is hard to control per step, so cost and quality drift.
  • Sessions are hard to resume, audit, and improve over time.

What Fabro adds

Fabro treats the process itself as code:

  • Workflow graphs define stages, branching, loops, parallelism, and human gates.
  • Model stylesheets route different stages to different models and providers.
  • Sandboxes and Git checkpoints make runs isolated, resumable, and inspectable.
  • Event logs, verifications, and run state create a feedback loop after execution.

Product direction

Fabro should optimize for trust in long-running workflows, not for chat UX. The product is most useful when expert engineers can design, run, inspect, and improve processes with minimal supervision.