Scissors automorphism groups and their homology

In any category with a reasonable notion of cover, each object has a group of scissors automorphisms. We prove that under mild conditions, the homology of this group is independent of the object, and can be expressed in terms of the scissors congruence K-theory spectrum defined by Zakharevich. We therefore obtain both a group-theoretic interpretation of Zakharevich’s higher scissors congruence K-theory, as well as a method to compute the homology of scissors automorphism groups. We apply this to various families of groups, such as interval exchange groups and Brin–Thompson groups, recovering results of Szymik–Wahl, Li, and Tanner, and obtaining new results as well.