How do you trace code back to the product decision behind it?

Keep the trail from the start: record each decision where the feature is designed, with where it came from and who confirmed it, and carry it into the stories and the plan the code is built from. Rivora Connect does this today: it traces everything it works with, from the question and the answer to the approved plan, the Jira stories and the coding agent's handoff, and it reads your code without ever changing it.

Why does the trail matter?

Months after a release, someone asks why it works this way. A client asks why delivery differs from what was promised. An engineer wants to change something and needs to know whether it was deliberate. Without a trail, the answer is a meeting, a search through old chats, and a guess.

What does Rivora trace?

• The sources. Each part of a feature's solution shows the sources it used, including the code Rivora read through GitHub.
• The decision. Each decision records where it applies, where it came from and who confirmed it.
• The approved plan. A person approves each part, sends it back with a comment, or edits it. Only approved parts feed the parts that follow.
• The stories. One epic per feature. Stories go to Jira only after a person approves them.
• The handoff. Approved work goes to coding agents such as Claude Code, Cursor and Codex, with the decisions and rules attached, and the agent can look up the sources behind each requirement.

So when someone asks "why does it work this way?", the answer starts at the approved plan and leads back to the person who confirmed it.

How do I show a client why delivery differs from the plan?

Open the feature in Rivora. The approved version shows what was agreed, the decisions show why, and each decision's scope shows whether it applied to that client. If a later decision replaced an earlier one, the next feature used the current one, and the record shows both.

What's coming next?

Comparing what a coding agent built with the approved stories, and approving it back in Rivora. This part is in development, as part of founder mode.

Questions

Does Rivora change our code?

No. Rivora reads your code through a GitHub App with read-only access. Your engineers and their coding agents make every change.

Can we try this on one of our features?

Yes. The Guided Pilot is built around this outcome: conflicting requirements resolved before engineering commits, and every decision traceable into the code, on one real feature over four weeks.