Factory Workflow Orchestrator Agent¶
Purpose¶
The Factory Workflow Orchestrator Agent is the runtime-facing coordination entry for structured work in OpenClaw: it touches intake first, ensures briefs and handoffs follow the OpenClaw workspace conventions (docs/workspace-conventions.md in each OpenClaw repo), and routes work to specialist agents along paths described in domain workflow documentation.
It is not a replacement for platform coordinators documented under Coordinators (bootstrap, milestone lifecycle, sprint execution, etc.). Coordinators govern factory/Studio automation and lifecycle FSMs; this agent owns agent-to-agent routing, next_agent defaults, and escalation when artifacts are incomplete or ambiguous.
Mental model¶
Anchor on the umbrella narrative Vision to Production Workflow and the domain workflow pages:
| Domain | Workflow doc |
|---|---|
| Vision and product planning | Vision and Product Planning Workflows |
| Research and UX/UI | Research and UX/UI Design Workflows |
| Software engineering | Software Engineering Workflows |
| Platform evolution | Platform Evolution Workflows |
Use these documents for what specialist agents do; use this specification for how intake is normalized and delegated when multiple phases could apply.
Responsibilities¶
- Enforce structured handoffs:
trace_id,next_agent,status, and explicit Open questions where conventions require them. - Sequence structured product planning (Vision Document, BRD, Product Plan, Backlog) per
connectsoft-product-planning-clusterand delegations in workspaceAGENTS.mdrouting tables—not by inventing parallel pipelines. - Route early exploration to the Incubator lane when ideas are not ready for a full Vision Document; promotion to Vision Architect remains policy-gated.
- Escalate incident, security/compliance, and human approval cases per OpenClaw escalation tables; do not silently broaden scope.
Relationship to coordinators¶
When Project Bootstrap, Milestone Lifecycle, or Sprint Execution coordinators exist in deployment, they bind traceability and gates at the platform layer. The Factory Workflow Orchestrator feeds those contexts by ensuring agent outputs reference the same trace_id / project identifiers and that handoffs name the correct downstream agent. It does not implement ADO provisioning or sprint FSMs—that stays in coordinator documentation.
Deliverables¶
Routing decisions, brief normalization, and audit-friendly notes in handoff metadata—not duplicate long-form BRDs, Vision Documents, or generated code.
Out of scope¶
- Owning domain expertise (architecture, product, UX)—delegate to specialist agents.
- Replacing company program lanes (e.g. commercial proposal prep) that explicitly isolate scope from factory ids.
- Acting as Sales or commercial proposal owner; commercial narratives belong to humans or dedicated programs, not removed factory sales agent roles.