Case · own product · SERENA Studio

From zero to production in 3 days, with one person and a factory of agents.

SERENA is corporate wellbeing you can measure. We built it with TelOS and publish its numbers as they are, including the ones that aren't good yet.

3

days from baseline to production

3

products: site, Studio and Studio Admin

1

person decides; agents execute

25%

change failure today · goal ≤ 20%

The challenge

A pilot with a fixed date and no team.

A corporate event in Monterrey on November 18, with partial client information and no access to their data. It needed a bilingual site, a PWA for participants and a panel to lead the live session, private by design: only averages of 5 or more people.

Everything configurable: nothing about the client lives in the code.

Explore SERENA Studio →

Step by step · from card to production

Every card follows the same path. No shortcuts.

Approved spec (G0) → tests first (G1) → quality, architecture, UX, accessibility, privacy and security (G2) → main → Minos gate → staging → human approval (G4) → production with rollback.

  1. 3 nov

    Baseline and decisions

    Single source, 10 ADRs and contracts. A person approves; agents propose.

  2. 4 nov

    Specs and trains

    Every card starts with a one-page spec (23 in total). 18 staging deploys on day one.

  3. 5 nov

    Continuous integration

    37 merges to main in one day; version 0.6.0 on staging.

  4. 6 nov

    First production

    Minos gate and human approval (G4). 15 production deploys, each with a rollback plan.

  5. 7–8 nov

    Harden and measure

    Change failure from 40% to 25%. 35 written lessons feed the next cycle.

  6. 18 nov

    Live pilot

    Corporate event in Monterrey: QR, mood check-in and anonymous survey.

See the full cycle and the 7 pillars →

The 4 DORA metrics · vs. public benchmarks

Elite speed. Stability to improve. We say it with numbers.

MetricSERENADORA benchmarkLevelGoal
Deployment frequency12.2 / day to staging
27 to production in 3 days
Elite: on demandEliteKeep
Lead time for changes0.45 h median, change → main
15.5 h idea → main
Elite: < 1 dayElite< 24 h idea → production
Change failure rate25%
down from 40% on Nov 6
Elite 5% · High 20% · Low 40%Between high and low≤ 20% by Feb 3
≤ 10% after
Time to restoreNo incidents recordedElite: < 1 hNot yet measurable< 1 h, with error monitoring on

Method: change failure = hotfix merges ÷ production deployments. No incidents recorded doesn't mean zero failures: production error monitoring is deferred by an architecture decision, so that metric isn't measurable yet. Baseline: Nov 3–7, 2026, 5 active days. Benchmarks: DORA 2024 and 2025. Source

20.6

merges to main per day

17

merges per human decision

39%

rework · goal ≤ 20%

27%

pass the automated review (G2) first time · goal ≥ 60%

Compared with a human factory

On speed, the factory is already in DORA's elite group: it merges changes in minutes and ships on demand. On stability, a 25% change failure rate puts it behind the high group (20%), the same pattern DORA 2025 describes: AI raises throughput and instability alike. So the next investment isn't more speed, it's gates that block before main.

Portfolio and dashboards

One person can run this because everything shows on four boards.

Portfolio

Platforms, products and each one's next gate, with a date.

Factory board

Cards per train: ready, in progress, in review, shipped. Max 3 in progress.

DORA metrics

Computed from the repo and the log, with the method written down.

Lessons book

Every release leaves a micro-retro; every failure, a lesson.

What we learned

Short specs win

One page, with acceptance criteria that are tests. Long AI-generated docs go unread.

Block early, don't review late

Automated gates before main cut change failure more than one more human review at the end.

The person decides less, and better

17 merges per human decision. Autonomy is earned with evidence, not assumed.

Want this cycle in your operation?

We start with a 2-week agentic diagnostic and a Decision Brief with your data.

Book 15 minSee a Decision Brief