Unit 05.00: Deciding in advance what the agent may decide

Write down which decisions belong to code, which to a person, and which to the agent - before building anything.

Three owners, one table

Every decision in the workflow, sorted by who makes it and why.

The table below sorts six.

DECISION                                    DECIDED BY   WHY
which queue this ticket belongs in          rule         four fixed outcomes
is the tone angry?                          agent        judgement
does the amount exceed 500?                 rule         a comparison
how should the reply be phrased?            agent        judgement
should the refund be issued?                human        irreversible
has the contract been found?                rule         a lookup

3 by rule, 2 by the agent, 1 by a person

Three of six need no judgement at all: a fixed set of destinations, a comparison, and a lookup. One belongs to a person because it is irreversible. Two are genuinely the agent's.

Writing this table first is what stops the agent quietly acquiring decisions nobody delegated to it. Built without it, the agent tends to own everything that was not explicitly taken away.

The mistake this prevents

The mistake is deciding ownership implicitly, by what ends up in the prompt. Anything mentioned in an instruction is a decision you have handed over, whether or not you meant to - and the ones handed over by accident are the ones nobody tests.

Takeaway

Assign every decision to code, a person, or the agent, in writing, before building. Unassigned decisions default to the agent.

Mark complete