Name: Creates a business Interpretation (normative): Beyond today's AI. The agent goes from a goal to a launched product: it stands up the codebase, the infrastructure, and the go-to-market, turning an idea into a live, revenue-capable business.
L5 is where the ladder stops describing a codebase and starts describing an agent's reach over a whole venture. The agent no longer just changes code inside a project a human created — it takes a goal and stands up the codebase, the infrastructure, and the go-to-market needed to launch a product. The output is not a merged PR; it is a live business capable of taking revenue.
Nothing in the field can do this end-to-end today, and the standard says so plainly. L5 exists to name the destination: the criteria below are the codebase-level capabilities a business would need in place before an agent could plausibly launch and bill for it.
Criteria at L5
L5 criteria are the foundations a launched, revenue-capable business rests on. They are aspirational and build on every level below:
How to climb to L6
L5 launches a business; L6 runs it. The step up is from a one-time stand-up to continuous operation — the agent adapting to the market, managing the books, and steering strategy as conditions drift. The L6 criteria (business-KPI instrumentation and operations runbooks) describe what an autonomously operated business needs to stay legible and steerable.