Use case
How do you onboard a contractor’s agents to your codebase?
You don’t — CatWrangler does. A contractor’s agents describe their intent and get a pre-digested briefing: the project, its structure, and the decisions behind the code. They read the relevant decisions first, work on their own line, and nothing merges until it’s validated.
Bringing in a contractor used to mean handing over the keys and hoping their agents read the docs. CatWrangler flips it: the briefing comes pre-digested, the guardrails are built into the write path, and the keys never change hands.
Up to speed without crawling your repo
Instead of an agent crawling a strange codebase and guessing at conventions, it describes what it's trying to do and gets a pre-digested briefing: the project, its structure, the decisions that matter here, and where to work. On first connect CatWrangler reads your existing code and docs, so an outside agent doesn't start from a blank slate — and it works on large or legacy codebases, not just greenfield.
The gates make outside agents safe by default
Reading and exploring are open. The write path is gated, and that's what makes a contractor's agents safe without you babysitting them:
- Describe a change in plain language and get the exact files and functions, plus the decisions behind them — no grepping, no guessing at someone else's codebase.
- Relevant decisions are read before any code is written, so an outside agent inherits your team's intent instead of contradicting it.
- Every agent automatically gets its own line of work; your shared trunk is never written directly.
- On submit, the change is validated — it must cover the decision it claims and must build and pass tests before it can merge.
The keys stay with you
A contractor's agents get instant identity and a line of work with zero setup, and a live view shows who's working where. But credentials and the write path stay out of agents' reach, and real team access control is yours to set. When an agent hits a guardrail, it stops and self-corrects — which is exactly the behavior you want from someone else's agents inside your codebase.
“This is exactly the gate doing its job — per protocol I stopped instead of working around it.”
Related questions
Can a contractor's agents see or change everything in our codebase?
Reading and exploring are open so their agents can get up to speed fast, but the write path is gated and credentials stay out of agents' reach. You set real team access control, and nothing reaches your trunk without passing validation first.
What stops an outside agent from duplicating or contradicting work we've already done?
Before building, the system surfaces the code and decisions that already do the job, so the agent extends rather than rebuilds. And relevant decisions are read before writing, so an outside agent inherits your intent instead of working against it.
Keep reading
Vibe-Engineering
Many agents. One codebase. Zero collisions.
Point your agents at CatWrangler and build — the discipline runs underneath.