Building a software factory: Week 1, zero to product

In a week-long experiment, the team at Ona documented the creation of a software factory capable of autonomously managing the entire software development lifecycle for a product called Memo, a Notion-like note-taking app. Beginning with an empty GitHub repository, the process saw over 130 pull requests merged and 12,202 lines of code produced without human-written code, relying instead on a series of orchestrated automations. These automations handled tasks such as planning, building, reviewing, and verifying code autonomously, with humans only intervening for product specification, automation design, and escalated reviews. The project demonstrated the potential for AI-driven agents to not just write code but oversee the full lifecycle of a product, although it highlighted the continued need for human input in areas like product direction and addressing design flaws not visible through code. The factory's success in rapidly building a functional product underscored the importance of precise input specifications and robust quality controls to ensure both speed and reliability in autonomous software production.