The Monotonic Ratchet: Why Your Codebase Quality Only Goes One Direction

Quality targets stop decaying when they become CI-enforced floors that every PR must preserve or raise. The monotonic ratchet stores today’s baseline, fails regressions, and automatically updates the floor when coverage, bugs, or vulnerabilities move in the right direction. Paired with AI agent loops, the gate becomes a target function for quality work: humans ship features, the system blocks entropy, and small improvements compound.