# Factory AI — HumanLayer is joining Factory

- Company: Factory AI (factory.com)
- Announced: 2026-11-04
- Category: partnership-acquisition
- Coverage: not counted
- Announcement: yes
- Group: announcements
- Source: https://factory.com/news/humanlayer
- Record: https://forck.live/items/31647-humanlayer-is-joining-factory
- Subject: Droid

Factory is acquiring HumanLayer, the coding-agent startup founded by Dex Horthy and Kyle Mistele, and plans to open source the product while inviting its users to Factory. Factory says the two teams aligned on mission and a shared vision for autonomous software engineering, and that they are already building together for developers and enterprise users. HumanLayer's platform will stay up during a transition period in which Factory will help users export their data, migrate to Factory, or self-host the open source version. Factory credits Horthy and Mistele with publishing the Research/Plan/Implement framework, one of the first viral skill packs in August 2025, and says HumanLayer has run 6-9 months ahead of the zeitgeist on coding-agent practices for large teams. In the next few weeks the two founders and their team will bring features such as multiplayer tasks and workstreams and in-app collaboration on agent-written plans, product specs and design docs to Factory. Factory, founded in 2023 by Matan Grinberg and Eno Reyes and based in San Francisco, sells a governed, model-independent system in which droids plan, build, validate and improve work inside a company's own infrastructure and approved models.

## Evidence

Verbatim from https://factory.com/news/humanlayer:

> Today, HumanLayer is joining Factory to accelerate building autonomous, self-improving software for enterprises and developers. We have long admired Dex Horthy and Kyle Mistele , and we are thrilled to be building the future of software factories together.
> 
> Dex and Kyle have been power users of coding agents since early 2025, early on ideas like agent swarms and publishing the Research/Plan/Implement framework, one of the first viral “skill packs” in August 2025. Since then, HumanLayer has been regularly 6-9 months ahead of the zeitgeist on best practices for working with coding agents and software factories, especially for larger teams with hundreds or thousands of engineers. Their writing and speaking has earned millions of views, and their product has earned a loyal following.
> 
> In conversations with Dex and Kyle, it became obvious that both teams were aligned on mission, respect for each other’s contributions, and a vision that we could pursue faster and better together. We joined forces knowing this would be a big win for customers of Factory and HumanLayer, and we are already building together in service of our developers and our enterprise users.

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