Most repo blockers are discovered too late.
A developer clones a repo, follows the README, runs the setup command, and only then finds out that the required runtime is missing. Or Docker is not running. Or the test database needs secrets they do not have. Or the command they ran was never the command CI uses.
By then, the repo has already wasted their time.
With AI agents, the cost is higher.
An agent can inspect files, choose commands, edit code, and run tests. But if the repo does not surface blockers early, the agent may spend its effort on the wrong thing. It may treat a missing service as a code bug. It may retry a command that was never going to work. It may make changes before realizing the repo was not ready to execute safely.
