Rubrics for autonomous coding agents
6 Jul 2026 · 7 min read
Coding agents need clear rubrics for correctness, maintainability, tests, security, and deployment readiness.
A coding agent rubric converts subjective review into reusable quality signals that can be compared across runs.
AstraRunner treats this as an execution-platform concern: the run needs durable state, traceable decisions, cost visibility, and enough structure for teams to review what happened after the agent finishes.
Patterns that work
- Grade correctness separately from style.
- Score test relevance, not only test presence.
- Treat security and migration risk as explicit dimensions.
- Keep deployment readiness distinct from implementation completeness.
Implementation checklist
- Use a fixed scale per dimension.
- Require textual rationale for low scores.
- Tie findings to files, tests, or artifacts.
- Track rubric changes as versioned policy.
Watch outs
- One aggregate score hides failure modes.
- Rubrics that change silently break trend analysis.
- A passing build is not a passing implementation.
Related reading
How this fits the Astra stack
AstraRunner owns the operational path for agent work: orchestration, scheduling, approval gates, traces, costs, and role-agent handoffs. AstraMemory owns durable context and retrieval. AstraGenie turns those capabilities into product workflows for teams that want automation without rebuilding the platform layer.