# Show HN: Self-managing codebase with long-horizon agents

> Source: <https://github.com/WillTaylor22/self-managing-codebase>
> Published: 2026-05-26 10:24:50+00:00

A demo showcasing an app maintained by a long-running agent.

Production apps need constant care: errors and stack traces to triage, slow endpoints to investigate, libraries to upgrade, regressions to roll back. That work eats developer time and can require on-call rotations.

This repo is demo that showcases what is possible in pushing those tasks onto a long-horizon agent.

**The demo product.** The demo product is a Next.js travel-planner app.**The managing agent.** A cloud-hosted Anthropic Managed Agent runs every 30 minutes (and on GitHub webhooks). It monitors Vercel + Sentry, files Linear tickets for new issues, picks up tickets, writes code, runs Playwright to view it's own work in a local dev server, and opens PRs.**The review agent.** A separate reviewer agent reads each PR cold, builds, runs tests, posts approve / request-changes / escalate. Three rounds of changes → escalates to a human.**The retro agent.** The agent system is self-learning. Each session can append to`.claude/memory/`

. A retro agent runs daily, summarises 24h of activity in a Linear project update, and proposes memory edits as a PR.

**Two cron-driven loops + webhook-driven resumes**

**Manager**(`/api/manager-tick`

, every 30 min). Reads memory, checks Vercel + Sentry, files tickets, picks up one Linear ticket, runs the dev loop locally in a sandbox (install, dev server, Playwright, build, lint), opens a PR.**Reviewer**(`/api/reviewer-tick`

, every 30 min). Reads each open PR cold, builds, runs e2e, posts`AGENT_REVIEW: APPROVED | REQUEST_CHANGES | ESCALATE`

.**Webhooks**(`/api/github-webhook`

). PR opens → reviewer fires immediately. Reviewer approval → manager session resumes (full context) and squash-merges.

**Daily retro** (`/api/retro-tick`

, 07:00 UTC). Reads 24h of activity, posts a Linear project update with a health field, and proposes `.claude/memory/`

edits as a PR.

**Stack**

**Anthropic Managed Agents**— three agents (manager, reviewer, retro), all running in cloud sandboxes with a mounted clone of this repo.** Linear MCP**— Store and control plane for tasks; also the location where the agent provides project updates.** GitHub MCP**— PRs, reviews, files.** Vercel MCP**— deployments, logs.** Sentry MCP**— runtime errors.** Vercel**— hosting + cron + webhooks for the orchestration routes.** Playwright**— e2e tests inside the sandbox.

```
npm run manager           # interactive REPL into a manager session
npm run manager:tick      # one-shot operational loop, prints transcript
npm run manager:bootstrap # apply agent YAML changes to the live agent
```

**Bring your own infrastructure.** The agent cannot create infrastructure, set env vars, register OAuth apps, or pay for services. Bootstrapping is human-only.**Further observability.** Product analytics, metrics and so on are trivial to add once the agent is running, and thus not done here.**Single-agent throughput.** WIP limit of 1 — the manager won't pick up a second ticket while another is in flight. Keeps things simple, caps throughput.

I hope this inspires you to set up your own. If you would like to swap notes, I can be reached at [willtay.com](https://willtay.com/).