Chapter 02
How Vyazen works
A short mental model of Vyazen so the rest of this guide makes sense. If you only read one section before your first task, read this one.
What Vyazen does
Vyazen connects an AI coding agent to a deep, queryable understanding of your codebase. You describe engineering work; the agent does it on a branch — researching your code, asking you questions, drafting a design, implementing, verifying, and proposing a pull request — while you stay in control at every approval gate.
The code graph
When you connect a repository, Vyazen reads it and builds a code graph — a searchable map of your codebase:
- Structure — your files, directories, and detected projects.
- Symbols — classes, functions, and methods, with their signatures.
- Links — which symbol calls, imports, uses, extends, or implements which other symbol.
- Summaries — a short AI description of each part.
This is why the agent can reason about your code without reading every file: it asks the graph. The graph also powers the auto-generated wiki and code search.
Repository vs branch
A repository is connected per branch. The branch you choose is the workspace where your tasks make changes; the agent commits to that branch.
The code wiki
Vyazen auto-generates a wiki for each repository — pages like Overview, Architecture, Glossary, and Patterns — and lets you chat with it. See The code wiki.
Task
A task is a unit of engineering work scoped to a repository and branch. You create a task with a short description; Vyazen spins up an isolated environment and runs an agent to do the work.
Instance
For each task, Vyazen provisions an instance — a sandboxed environment that runs exactly one task's agent. It has a lifecycle: it starts up, runs, and is torn down when the task ends.
Agent
The agent is the AI assistant that does the work. Vyazen supports multiple models; the agent can also spawn a lightweight subagent to look things up (for example, an "explore" subagent that queries the code graph).
Skill
A skill is a bundled capability the agent uses — for example, the ability to plan an implementation step-by-step, or to review its own work. Skills are what make the agent follow a disciplined process.
The agent workflow
Each task follows a structured workflow of phases:
- Research — the agent studies your code and the task.
- Clarify — the agent asks you questions to remove ambiguity.
- Design — the agent proposes an approach and asks for your approval.
- Plan — it breaks the work into ordered, testable steps.
- Implement — it writes the code, one step at a time.
- Verify — it runs checks and confirms the work passes.
- Review — it reviews its own changes for quality and drift.
- Pull request — it proposes a PR for your review.
Not every task runs every phase — a small fix may skip design — but research, verification, and a PR are always present.
Approval gates
You stay in the loop through approval gates: moments where the agent pauses and waits for you. The main gates are:
- Questions — the agent asks you to choose between options.
- Design sign-off — the agent asks yes/no on its proposed approach.
- Pull request — the agent asks you to approve the commit, push, and PR.
Nothing is committed or pushed without your say-so.