From 7650735f18ba472597102ebfc66577b2dd62b0eb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: jedarden Date: Sun, 24 May 2026 22:56:59 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] docs(readme): frame Trail Boss as human-on-the-loop / dead-letter queue MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Emphasize that agents run autonomously and the human is engaged only by exception — the failure-mode handler / dead-letter-queue processor for a fleet of agents, not a gate on every step. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) --- README.md | 21 ++++++++++++++++----- 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index f5b2e9f..0c02957 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -6,10 +6,20 @@ order — Trail Boss is the single pane where it reports in. You ride over, set wave it on), and your reply lands back in the exact session — so you stop hand-cycling terminal windows hunting for whoever's stuck.** -Trail Boss inverts the human-in-the-loop bottleneck. Instead of *you* polling many concurrent -agent sessions to find the one that needs you, each stuck session raises its hand and Trail -Boss presents them as one **prioritized queue — most-stuck first**. Read the context, give the -order (reply), or wave it on (skip). +## Human *on* the loop, not *in* it + +Trail Boss turns human-**in**-the-loop into human-**on**-the-loop. Classic agentic HITL wires +you into the inner cycle — approving each step, answering each prompt — so you are the +bottleneck on every iteration. Trail Boss flips it: agents run autonomously by default and you +supervise from above, engaged only by **exception**. When an agent can't proceed on its own — +needs a decision, hits a permission gate, or exhausts its turn — it falls through to you. + +Put plainly, **the human is the failure mode.** Trail Boss is a **dead-letter queue for a fleet +of agents**: the happy path never touches you; only stalled work routes to you, you process the +exception (reply or skip), and it goes back on the wire. Instead of *you* polling many sessions +to find the one that needs you, each stuck session raises its hand and Trail Boss presents them +as one **prioritized queue — most-stuck first**. Read the context, give the order (reply), or +wave it on (skip). ``` ┌─ TRAIL BOSS ────────────────────────────────────────────── 3 stuck ───┐ @@ -41,7 +51,8 @@ periodically stalls waiting on a human: Discovering those stalls by manually cycling windows is the bottleneck — with N sessions, most of your time goes to *finding* the one that needs you, not *answering* it, and a session can sit blocked for minutes while otherwise-parallel work waits. The human is the scarce -resource; the system should route the human's attention, not the other way around. +resource; the system should route the human's attention, not the other way around — engaging +you by exception, not on every step. ## How it works