LAYER 2 OF THE AI-FIRST SDLC: A PROPOSED AGENT-DRIVEN ARCHITECTURE FOR BUILD, VALIDATION, AND RELEASE READINESS

This paper proposes Layer 2 of the AI-First Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) introduced in our parent framework and extended through the Layer 1 Product and Designer Layer. Layer 2 is a conceptual Build, Validate, and Release architecture intended to transform a Product Requirement Bundle (PRB) and a Design Artifact Bundle (DAB) into a documented, validated, merge-ready pull request. It defines six proposed specialist agents—Architecture, Coding, Testing, Review, PR, and CI Gate—coordinated by a Layer 2 Sub-Orchestrator. The design includes a bounded Feedback-Driven Repair Loop, revalidation after code modifications, non-overridable CI and security gates, and a mandatory human merge decision. The proposed design draws on the authors' technical analysis, review of existing software-engineering and agentic-AI approaches, and exploratory proof-of-concept work. The integrated architecture has not been implemented or empirically evaluated; potential effects on delivery time, code quality, cost, and compliance remain hypotheses for future evaluation.