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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.

~3 min read10 sections

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:

  1. Research — the agent studies your code and the task.
  2. Clarify — the agent asks you questions to remove ambiguity.
  3. Design — the agent proposes an approach and asks for your approval.
  4. Plan — it breaks the work into ordered, testable steps.
  5. Implement — it writes the code, one step at a time.
  6. Verify — it runs checks and confirms the work passes.
  7. Review — it reviews its own changes for quality and drift.
  8. 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.

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