Helical Pipeline Architecture for Autonomous Multi-Agent SaaS Development

We present the Helical Pipeline Architecture (HPA), a compounding parallel execution model for autonomous AI agent teams building compound SaaS platforms. Unlike flat ring pipelines or sequential phase gates, HPA organizes work as a helix: four concurrent stage-groups (Forge, Define, Build, Verify) form a single revolution, and each completed revolution elevates products to a higher-order layer where the same four stages execute against progressively richer integration targets. The architecture incorporates gradient auto-compaction for agent context management, DAG-governed task dependencies, and a formal state machine guaranteeing the helical invariant. Applied to Pastoral Tech, a 20+ product church operations platform with theological guardrail enforcement.