[Pelis Agent Factory Advisor] Pelis Agent Factory Advisor: Opportunities to Max Out on Agentic Workflows

[github-actions[bot]]

📊 Executive Summary

The gh-aw-firewall repository has made solid progress with 15 agentic workflows already in place. However, compared to the Pelis Agent Factory benchmark (100+ workflows in production), there are significant opportunities to increase automation density and operational efficiency. This analysis identifies 19 high-priority opportunities across 7 categories that could transform this security-critical tool into a fully automated, self-improving system.

Current maturity: Level 3/5 (Solid foundation, room for specialization)
Target maturity: Level 4/5 (Comprehensive automation with continuous improvement)

---

🎓 Patterns Learned from Pelis Agent Factory

Core Principles Observed

1. Specialization Over Generalization

• Pelis Factory uses 100+ specialized workflows vs. monolithic agents
• Each workflow has a narrow, well-defined purpose
• "Continuous X" pattern: Continuous Simplicity, Continuous Refactoring, Continuous Documentation
• Result: More useful applications discovered through specialization

2. Security-First Design

• Safe-outputs pattern eliminates need for write permissions
• Scoped permissions (contents: read, issues: read, etc.)
• Tool allowlists with specific GitHub API toolsets
• Network firewall integration for controlled execution

3. Natural Language Instructions

• Workflows written as Markdown with YAML frontmatter
• Body contains natural language instructions (like a to-do list)
• Compilation step (.md → .lock.yml) adds security hardening
• Human-readable and easily customizable

4. Skip Conditions for Intelligence

• skip-if-match: Avoid duplicate work (e.g., skip if PR already open)
• skip-if-no-match: Only run when conditions met
• Prevents overwhelming users with redundant outputs

5. Meta-Agents for Scale

• Agents that monitor other agents (CI Doctor, Workflow Health Manager)
• Self-healing systems that detect and fix issues
• Analytics workflows that track effectiveness

Comparison with Current Implementation

What gh-aw-firewall does well:

• ✅ Strong security-focused workflows (security-guard, security-review)
• ✅ CI/CD observability (ci-doctor)
• ✅ Documentation maintenance (doc-maintainer)
• ✅ Test coverage tracking (test-coverage-improver)
• ✅ Issue management (issue-monster, issue-duplication-detector)

Areas for improvement:

• ⚠️ Limited code quality automation (no simplifiers, refactorers, or duplicate detectors)
• ⚠️ No continuous improvement workflows for examples, scripts, or container configs
• ⚠️ No user experience workflows (CLI consistency, documentation UX testing)
• ⚠️ No operational excellence workflows (performance monitoring, resource optimization)
• ⚠️ No community engagement workflows (contributor onboarding, issue triage enhancements)

---

📋 Current Agentic Workflow Inventory

Workflow	Purpose	Trigger	Assessment
ci-doctor	Investigates workflow failures	workflow_run	✅ Strong - proactive failure diagnosis
ci-cd-gaps-assessment	Identifies CI/CD pipeline gaps	schedule/dispatch	✅ Good - strategic planning tool
dependency-security-monitor	Tracks dependency vulnerabilities	schedule	✅ Good - security compliance
doc-maintainer	Syncs docs with code	schedule/dispatch	✅ Good - prevents documentation drift
issue-duplication-detector	Finds duplicate issues	issues opened	✅ Good - reduces noise
issue-monster	Assigns issues to agents	issues/schedule	✅ Good - controlled automation
pelis-agent-factory-advisor	Analyzes workflow opportunities	dispatch	🔄 This workflow!
plan	Interactive planning agent	dispatch	✅ Good - strategic tool
release	Automates releases	push to main	✅ Critical - deployment automation
security-guard	Reviews PRs for security issues	pull_request	✅ Strong - security boundary enforcement
security-review	Daily security threat modeling	schedule	✅ Good - proactive security
smoke-claude/copilot	Tests basic functionality	schedule	✅ Good - validation
test-coverage-improver	Adds tests for uncovered code	schedule/dispatch	✅ Good - quality improvement
update-release-notes	Maintains release notes	schedule/dispatch	✅ Good - documentation automation

---

🚀 Actionable Recommendations

P0 - Implement Immediately

These workflows deliver immediate value with minimal effort and address critical gaps:

1. Continuous Code Simplifier

Priority: P0 | Effort: Low | Impact: High

What: Analyze recently modified code (last 3 days) and create PRs with simplifications that preserve functionality.

Why:

• Security-critical code requires maximum clarity for audit and review
• Recent development in integration tests, log aggregation, and DNS features shows rapid iteration that could benefit from cleanup
• 18% coverage in docker-manager.ts suggests complexity that could be simplified

How:

• Daily schedule
• Analyze git commits from last 3 days
• Focus on security-critical files (host-iptables.ts, docker-manager.ts, domain-patterns.ts)
• Look for: nested conditionals, duplicated error handling, verbose logging, opportunity for helper functions
• Create PR with [simplify] prefix

Example (adapted from Pelis Factory):

---
description: Automatic Code Simplifier for security-critical firewall code
on:
  schedule: daily
  workflow_dispatch:
permissions:
  contents: read
tools:
  github:
    toolsets: [default]
  bash:
safe-outputs:
  create-pull-request:
    title-prefix: "[simplify] "
    draft: false
timeout-minutes: 15
---

# Automatic Code Simplifier

Analyze code modified in the last 3 days and propose simplifications that improve clarity without changing behavior.

## Focus Areas
1. Security-critical files: `src/host-iptables.ts`, `src/docker-manager.ts`, `src/domain-patterns.ts`
2. Error handling patterns - consolidate similar try/catch blocks
3. Logging statements - reduce verbosity
4. Boolean expressions - simplify complex conditions
5. Function extraction - reduce duplication

---

2. CLI Consistency Checker

Priority: P0 | Effort: Low | Impact: High

What: Weekly inspection of CLI for inconsistencies, typos, and documentation gaps.

Why:

• CLI is the primary user interface - UX consistency is critical
• Currently 0% test coverage on cli.ts
• Complex flag combinations (--allow-domains, --dns-servers, --build-local, --image-registry) need validation

How:

• Weekly schedule
• Check flag naming consistency (kebab-case vs snake_case)
• Verify all flags have descriptions in help text
• Validate flag combinations work together
• Cross-reference with documentation
• Create issues for inconsistencies

Example:

---
description: CLI Consistency Checker for awf
on:
  schedule: weekly
  workflow_dispatch:
permissions:
  contents: read
tools:
  github:
    toolsets: [default]
  bash:
safe-outputs:
  create-issue:
    title-prefix: "[cli-ux] "
timeout-minutes: 10
---

# CLI Consistency Checker

Inspect the CLI for inconsistencies, typos, and documentation gaps.

## Checks
1. Flag naming conventions (all kebab-case?)
2. Help text completeness for all flags
3. Flag combinations that conflict
4. Error messages are helpful and actionable
5. Examples in README match actual CLI syntax

---

3. Duplicate Code Detector (TypeScript/Shell)

Priority: P0 | Effort: Medium | Impact: High

What: Use semantic analysis to find duplicate logic patterns in TypeScript and shell scripts.

Why:

• 7 shell scripts in scripts/ci/ with potential duplication (cleanup, testing patterns)
• Container setup scripts (entrypoint.sh, setup-iptables.sh) have similar error handling
• Integration tests (14 files) likely have duplicated test setup/teardown code

How:

• Weekly schedule
• Use AST parsing for TypeScript (via ts-morph or similar)
• Use pattern matching for shell scripts
• Focus on: test setup/teardown, error handling, Docker interaction patterns
• Create issues with refactoring suggestions
• Skip patterns less than 10 lines

Example:

---
description: Duplicate Code Detector for TypeScript and shell scripts
on:
  schedule: weekly
  workflow_dispatch:
permissions:
  contents: read
tools:
  github:
    toolsets: [default]
  bash:
safe-outputs:
  create-issue:
    title-prefix: "[duplicate-code] "
    max: 3
timeout-minutes: 20
---

# Duplicate Code Detector

Find duplicated logic patterns in TypeScript and shell scripts.

## Scope
1. TypeScript files: `src/**/*.ts`, `tests/**/*.ts`
2. Shell scripts: `scripts/**/*.sh`, `containers/**/*.sh`
3. Minimum pattern size: 10 lines
4. Focus on: error handling, Docker interactions, test setup patterns

---

4. Daily Container Security Hardening Review

Priority: P0 | Effort: Low | Impact: High

What: Daily review of container configurations for security hardening opportunities.

Why:

• Security is the core mission of this tool
• Containers run with NET_ADMIN capability (high privilege)
• Seccomp profile could evolve with new threats
• Current container-scan.yml only checks images, not configs

How:

• Daily schedule
• Review Dockerfiles, docker-compose generation, seccomp profiles
• Check for capability minimization opportunities
• Validate resource limits are still appropriate
• Compare against CIS Docker benchmarks
• Create issues for hardening opportunities

Example:

---
description: Daily Container Security Hardening Review
on:
  schedule: daily
  workflow_dispatch:
permissions:
  contents: read
tools:
  github:
    toolsets: [default]
  bash:
safe-outputs:
  create-issue:
    title-prefix: "[security-hardening] "
timeout-minutes: 10
---

# Container Security Hardening Review

Review container configurations for security improvements.

## Checks
1. Capability usage - can we drop any?
2. Seccomp profile - new syscalls to block?
3. Resource limits - appropriate for workload?
4. User privileges - still running as non-root?
5. Network restrictions - any new attack vectors?

---

5. Breaking Change Checker

Priority: P0 | Effort: Medium | Impact: High

What: On each PR, detect potential breaking changes to CLI flags, environment variables, or public APIs.

Why:

• Tool is used in CI/CD pipelines - breaking changes are costly
• No automated detection of API changes
• Version 0.11.2 suggests active development with potential for breaking changes

How:

• Trigger on pull_request
• Compare changed files against known public interfaces
• Check: CLI flags (src/cli.ts), environment variables (docs/environment.md), GitHub Action inputs (action.yml)
• Parse TypeScript exports from src/ directory
• Comment on PR if breaking changes detected

Example:

---
description: Breaking Change Checker for public APIs
on:
  pull_request:
    types: [opened, synchronize]
permissions:
  contents: read
  pull-requests: read
tools:
  github:
    toolsets: [default]
  bash:
safe-outputs:
  add-comment:
    max: 1
timeout-minutes: 10
---

# Breaking Change Checker

Detect potential breaking changes in pull requests.

## Public API Surface
1. CLI flags (commander options in src/cli.ts)
2. Environment variables (AWF_*, documented in docs/environment.md)
3. GitHub Action inputs (action.yml)
4. Exported functions from src/ (for programmatic usage)
5. Container names (awf-squid, awf-agent)

---

P1 - Plan for Near-Term

High-impact workflows that require moderate effort:

6. Continuous Refactoring Agent

Priority: P1 | Effort: Medium | Impact: High

What: Weekly refactoring campaign focusing on design patterns, error handling, and TypeScript best practices.

Why:

• docker-manager.ts is 250 lines with 18% coverage - likely needs refactoring
• cli.ts has 0% coverage - suggests testability issues
• Project uses TypeScript 5.x but may not leverage latest features

How: Similar to continuous simplifier but focused on architecture:

• Extract classes from large functions
• Improve error handling patterns
• Add type safety improvements
• Refactor for testability

---

7. Integration Test Generator

Priority: P1 | Effort: High | Impact: High

What: Analyze existing integration tests and generate new tests for uncovered scenarios.

Why:

• 14 integration test files - good foundation
• Coverage gaps in edge cases (IPv6, DNS edge cases, container failures)
• Security tool needs exhaustive integration testing

How:

• Analyze existing test patterns in tests/integration/
• Identify missing scenarios from code coverage reports
• Generate test files following existing patterns
• Focus on security-critical paths

---

8. Daily Script Quality Improver

Priority: P1 | Effort: Low | Impact: Medium

What: Review shell scripts for shellcheck violations, best practices, and error handling.

Why:

• 7 CI scripts in scripts/ci/
• Container scripts are security-critical (setup-iptables.sh, entrypoint.sh)
• Shell scripts often lack error handling

How:

• Run shellcheck on all .sh files
• Check for: missing error handling (set -e), unquoted variables, missing input validation
• Create PRs with fixes

---

9. Performance Baseline Monitor

Priority: P1 | Effort: Medium | Impact: Medium

What: Daily performance benchmarks for container startup time, command execution overhead, and resource usage.

Why:

• No performance tracking currently
• Container startup overhead matters for CI/CD usage
• Resource consumption (memory, CPU) could grow over time

How:

• Daily schedule
• Run benchmark suite: container startup, simple command execution, cleanup time
• Track metrics in cache-memory
• Alert on regressions (>10% slower)

---

10. Documentation UX Tester

Priority: P1 | Effort: Medium | Impact: Medium

What: Weekly validation that all code examples in documentation actually work.

Why:

• 17 documentation files in docs/
• Examples in README.md, docs/quickstart.md, docs/usage.md
• No automated testing of documentation examples

How:

• Extract code blocks from markdown files
• Execute examples in isolated environment
• Verify expected outputs
• Create issues for broken examples

---

11. Workflow Health Manager

Priority: P1 | Effort: Medium | Impact: High

What: Meta-agent that monitors health of all agentic workflows and creates health reports.

Why:

• 15 agentic workflows with no unified health monitoring
• Some workflows may fail silently or become stale
• Need visibility into workflow effectiveness

How:

• Daily schedule
• Query GitHub Actions API for workflow run statistics
• Track: success rate, duration trends, frequency of runs
• Create weekly health report
• Alert on workflows with <80% success rate

---

P2 - Consider for Roadmap

Medium-impact opportunities worth planning:

12. Contributor Onboarding Improver

Priority: P2 | Effort: Low | Impact: Medium

What: Analyze CONTRIBUTING.md and suggest improvements based on recent contributor questions/issues.

Why:

• Open source project needs good contributor docs
• CONTRIBUTING.md exists but could evolve
• First-time contributor experience matters

How:

• Monthly schedule
• Analyze recent issues from first-time contributors
• Check for common questions in issue comments
• Suggest additions to CONTRIBUTING.md

---

13. Example Maintenance Agent

Priority: P2 | Effort: Low | Impact: Medium

What: Weekly review of examples/ directory to keep examples up-to-date with latest CLI syntax.

Why:

• 6 example scripts in examples/
• Examples can drift from current CLI flags
• Examples are often copy-pasted by users

How:

• Weekly schedule
• Parse example scripts for awf invocations
• Validate flags against current CLI
• Test examples in isolated environment
• Create PR with updates

---

14. Dependency Update Strategist

Priority: P2 | Effort: Low | Impact: Low

What: Analyze package.json dependencies and suggest update strategies with risk assessment.

Why:

• dependency-security-monitor exists but reactive
• Need proactive update planning
• Balance security vs. stability

How:

• Monthly schedule
• Check for outdated dependencies
• Assess risk: major vs. minor vs. patch
• Create issues with update strategy
• Prioritize security-related updates

---

15. Daily Log Analysis for Anomalies

Priority: P2 | Effort: Medium | Impact: Medium

What: Analyze Squid logs and iptables logs for unusual patterns that might indicate security issues.

Why:

• Firewall generates comprehensive logs
• No automated anomaly detection
• Could detect attack patterns or misconfigurations

How:

• Daily schedule
• Parse awf logs summary from recent runs
• Look for: unusual domains, high block rates, error patterns
• Create issues for investigation

---

16. GitHub Actions Workflow Optimizer

Priority: P2 | Effort: Medium | Impact: Medium

What: Analyze GitHub Actions workflows for optimization opportunities (caching, parallelization, job dependencies).

Why:

• Multiple conventional workflows (build.yml, lint.yml, test-coverage.yml, etc.)
• Could benefit from optimization review
• CI time matters for developer experience

How:

• Weekly schedule
• Analyze workflow YAML files
• Check for: missing caches, sequential jobs that could be parallel, redundant checkouts
• Create PRs with optimizations

---

P3 - Future Ideas

Low-priority but interesting opportunities:

17. Daily Container Image Size Monitor

Priority: P3 | Effort: Low | Impact: Low

What: Track container image sizes over time and alert on bloat.

Why: Container size affects startup time and resource usage.

How: Daily measurement, trend analysis in cache-memory.

---

18. User Feedback Aggregator

Priority: P3 | Effort: Low | Impact: Low

What: Analyze issues/discussions for user pain points and feature requests.

Why: Better understand user needs.

How: Monthly aggregation, summary reports.

---

19. Cross-Repository Workflow Sync

Priority: P3 | Effort: High | Impact: Medium

What: Sync reusable workflow patterns with the agentics repository.

Why:

• Part of Pelis Agent Factory ecosystem
• Could contribute patterns back to the collection

How:

• Monthly check for applicable patterns
• Create PRs to add to agentics collection

---

📈 Maturity Assessment

Current Level: 3/5 - Solid Foundation

Strengths:

• Strong security focus (security-guard, security-review, dependency-security-monitor)
• Good CI observability (ci-doctor)
• Documentation automation (doc-maintainer)
• Issue management automation (issue-monster, issue-duplication-detector)

Gaps:

• Limited code quality automation (no simplifiers, refactorers, duplicate detectors)
• No continuous improvement for non-code artifacts (scripts, examples, container configs)
• No operational monitoring (performance, resource usage)
• No user experience workflows (CLI consistency, example validation)

Target Level: 4/5 - Comprehensive Automation

To reach level 4, implement:

1. ✅ P0 workflows (continuous simplifier, CLI checker, duplicate detector, container hardening, breaking change checker)
2. ✅ At least 5 P1 workflows (refactoring agent, integration test generator, script quality, performance monitor, workflow health)
3. ✅ Workflow health monitoring system (meta-agent layer)

Level 5 would add:

• Multi-phase improvement campaigns
• Cross-repository coordination
• Self-optimizing workflows (agents that improve other agents)
• Predictive analytics (forecast issues before they occur)

---

🔄 Comparison with Best Practices

What gh-aw-firewall does exceptionally well:

✅ Security-First Workflows: Security-guard and security-review provide comprehensive security coverage beyond most projects.

✅ Domain-Specific Intelligence: Workflows understand the security-critical nature of the codebase (iptables, Squid, containers).

✅ CI Observability: ci-doctor provides proactive failure diagnosis, aligning with Pelis Factory's "agents excel at tedious investigation" principle.

Where gh-aw-firewall can improve:

⚠️ Limited Code Quality Automation: Pelis Factory has continuous simplicity, continuous refactoring, continuous style - gh-aw-firewall only has test-coverage-improver.

⚠️ No Duplicate Detection: Critical for a codebase with integration tests, CI scripts, and container configs where patterns repeat.

⚠️ Missing UX Workflows: No CLI consistency checker, example validator, or documentation UX testing.

⚠️ No Performance Monitoring: No baseline tracking or regression detection for container startup time or execution overhead.

Unique Opportunities Given Domain (Firewall/Security):

🔐 Security-Specific Patterns:

• Daily container security hardening review (adapt CIS benchmarks)
• Anomaly detection in firewall logs (unusual traffic patterns)
• Compliance tracking for security policies
• Regular security posture assessments

🔐 Performance-Critical Patterns:

• Container startup time benchmarks (matters for CI/CD)
• Network throughput monitoring (firewall overhead)
• Resource consumption tracking (memory, CPU for long-running commands)

🔐 User Trust Patterns:

• Breaking change detection (critical for security tools)
• Example validation (security tools need working examples)
• Documentation accuracy (incorrect security docs are dangerous)

---

📝 Implementation Roadmap

Month 1: Quick Wins (P0 Workflows)

• Week 1: Continuous Code Simplifier
• Week 2: CLI Consistency Checker
• Week 3: Breaking Change Checker
• Week 4: Container Security Hardening Review

Month 2: Quality Foundation (P0 + P1)

• Week 1: Duplicate Code Detector
• Week 2: Workflow Health Manager
• Week 3: Performance Baseline Monitor
• Week 4: Daily Script Quality Improver

Month 3: Comprehensive Coverage (P1 + P2)

• Week 1: Continuous Refactoring Agent
• Week 2: Integration Test Generator
• Week 3: Documentation UX Tester
• Week 4: Example Maintenance Agent

Beyond Month 3: Polish (P2 + P3)

• Optimize and tune existing workflows
• Add P2/P3 workflows based on learnings
• Consider contributing patterns back to agentics collection

---

📌 Next Steps

1. Review this analysis with the team - prioritize based on current pain points
2. Start with one P0 workflow - suggest Continuous Code Simplifier or CLI Consistency Checker
3. Add workflow incrementally - one per week to avoid overwhelming the system
4. Monitor effectiveness - track metrics (PRs created, issues found, time saved)
5. Iterate and improve - customize workflows based on experience
6. Share learnings - contribute successful patterns back to Pelis Agent Factory

---

🔗 References

• Pelis Agent Factory
• Meet the Workflows Series
• Agentics Collection
• Quick Start Guide

---

Generated by: Pelis Agent Factory Advisor
Date: 2026-01-24
Workflow: .github/workflows/pelis-agent-factory-advisor.md
Total Recommendations: 19 opportunities (5 P0, 6 P1, 5 P2, 3 P3)

AI generated by Pelis Agent Factory Advisor

• expires on Jan 31, 2026, 8:57 PM UTC

[github-actions[bot]]

This discussion was automatically closed because it expired on 2026-01-31T20:57:21.001Z.