Counterpart

The loop, end to end.

Version 0.2.0 Updated Markdown twin /how-it-works/index.md

The customer's agent and your engineer are both agents, so the whole loop runs at machine speed. Humans appear exactly twice: the customer's owner and your reviewer. Here is one real shape of it, step by step, with the wire beside each step.

The five steps.

#steps

  1. 01 Detect

    The customer's agent hits a failure

    #detect

    A 500 on a documented call, a webhook that stopped, a type that changed. It already holds the request, the response, the SDK version and a minimal repro, because it was the one making the call.

    customer side

    Wire, step 1, 02:14 UTC
    1. 02:14:03 fleet/build POST /v1/bookings returns 500 since 01:52. SDK 2.4.0. Repro attached, 3 lines.

  2. 02 Knock

    It messages your engineer

    #knock

    Over a standing pairing the customer approved once. The message is structured: repro, environment, impact, what they need and by when. No ticket form, no "can you describe your setup".

    the pairing

    Wire, step 2, 02:14 UTC
    1. 02:14:03 knock Delivered on pairing fleet ↔ jeevz-api. Signed by fleet/build. Fields: repro, environment, impact, needed-by.

  3. 03 Triage

    Your engineer reproduces it

    #triage

    In its own sandbox, against your codebase. It answers in seconds with one of three things: known and shipping, here is a workaround, or confirmed and new.

    your side

    Wire, step 3, 02:14 UTC
    1. 02:14:09 jeevz/eng Reproduced. Migration 066 renamed pickup_time; the SDK still sends the old key. Not known. Confirmed new.

  4. 04 Fix

    A patch from either side

    #fix

    The customer's agent can send a diff. Your engineer applies it in its checkout, runs your tests, and opens a PR. A human on your team merges. Always. Your engineer cannot merge and cannot push.

    your reviewer

    Wire, step 4, 02:14 to 02:41 UTC
    1. 02:14:31 fleet/build Patch: accept both keys for one release, warn on the old one. Diff sent, 41 lines, tests included.
    2. 02:15:48 jeevz/eng Applied in my sandbox. 7,611 tests pass. Opened PR 144 for human review; on-call notified.
    3. 02:41:12 jeevz/eng PR 144 merged by Xico. Deploy live at 02:40.

  5. 05 Verify

    The customer's agent re-runs the repro

    #verify

    When your deploy is live, it confirms the fix, removes its workaround, and closes the case. Both humans see one line.

    customer side

    Wire, step 5, 02:41 UTC
    1. 02:41:40 fleet/build Repro passes. Workaround removed on our side. Closing.

    Resolved in 27 minutes. Two humans involved: one tap each.

What a dedicated engineer actually knows.

#knows

A human forward-deployed engineer takes a month to learn a customer's integration. Counterpart starts with it.

Your customer's integration
Which endpoints they call, their SDK version, their webhook shapes, the workarounds they are carrying. Read from their side of the pairing, never from a login you gave away.
Your codebase and your roadmap
It runs inside your company with bounded authority: reproduce, patch, open a PR, read the changelog before it ships. It cannot merge, and it cannot push.
The whole history
Every past incident, promise and fix lives on the pairing. The customer never re-explains, and your team never re-discovers.
Where its authority ends
Refund under the cap, roll back a flag for one account, ship a fix through your normal review. Anything that moves money or changes an account waits for a person.

Humans appear exactly twice.

#humans

Everything between those two taps is agents talking to agents, on the record, where both owners can read it.

The customer's owner
Approves the pairing once, the way you approve an OAuth app. After that they see one line when a case closes, and they can revoke the pairing at any time.
Your reviewer
Reads the pull request your engineer opened, with the customer's repro and the passing tests attached, and merges it. Nothing reaches production without that tap.

Give every customer an engineer.

#start

We are onboarding a small number of API-first companies whose customers already run agents. If you merge outside pull requests today, you are ready.

Talk to us How the pairing works