1 min lesson
The 8-station demo spine
Put this idea into your own words: "The Northstar demo runs one backbone end to end."
Step 1 of 3
Interactive diagram. Tab through its regions; each focused region shows its detail in the panel below.
diagram: demo-spine
The Northstar demo runs one backbone end to end: ticket → explore → plan → change → test → PR/evidence → review → gate. Memorize the order; a human holds the merge key at the last station.
Learn more
Advanced table
Step
- Step
- Ticket intake
- Lands on
- PM / delivery lead
- Control you name
- Value-stream traceability
- Step
- Ask modeA read-only mode for asking questions about a codebase without changing files; the safe way to explore unfamiliar or legacy code. Press Enter for the full definition. explore
- Lands on
- Senior / staff eng
- Control you name
- Read-only blast-radius review
- Step
- Reviewable Plan
- Lands on
- Staff eng
- Control you name
- Separation of duties (intent reviewed pre-execution)
- Step
- Change under Project RulesVersion-controlled instructions in the repo that every Cursor agent interaction inherits, so standards are encoded once. Press Enter for the full definition.
- Lands on
- Architect / security
- Control you name
- Policy-as-config guardrail
- Step
- Meaningful tests
- Lands on
- QA / senior eng
- Control you name
- Quality gate
- Step
- Diff → PR + evidence
- Lands on
- Auditor / compliance
- Control you name
- ITGCIT General Controls. The baseline IT controls auditors check: who can change what, how changes get approved and how systems are run. Press Enter for the full definition. evidence, AI-code tracking
- Step
- BugbotCursor's automated PR reviewer that posts inline findings and can push fix commits from isolated VMs. Press Enter for the full definition. under reviewers
- Lands on
- Security / eng lead
- Control you name
- Automated review, human approval
- Step
- Failing CI triage
- Lands on
- Release manager / auditor
- Control you name
- Merge gate, human holds the key
| Step | Lands on | Control you name |
|---|---|---|
| Ticket intake | PM / delivery lead | Value-stream traceability |
| Ask modeA read-only mode for asking questions about a codebase without changing files; the safe way to explore unfamiliar or legacy code. Press Enter for the full definition. explore | Senior / staff eng | Read-only blast-radius review |
| Reviewable Plan | Staff eng | Separation of duties (intent reviewed pre-execution) |
| Change under Project RulesVersion-controlled instructions in the repo that every Cursor agent interaction inherits, so standards are encoded once. Press Enter for the full definition. | Architect / security | Policy-as-config guardrail |
| Meaningful tests | QA / senior eng | Quality gate |
| Diff → PR + evidence | Auditor / compliance | ITGCIT General Controls. The baseline IT controls auditors check: who can change what, how changes get approved and how systems are run. Press Enter for the full definition. evidence, AI-code tracking |
| BugbotCursor's automated PR reviewer that posts inline findings and can push fix commits from isolated VMs. Press Enter for the full definition. under reviewers | Security / eng lead | Automated review, human approval |
| Failing CI triage | Release manager / auditor | Merge gate, human holds the key |