Getting started with an authority design.
A practical sequence for scoping an integration before choosing interfaces or writing adapters.
- Input
- principal + task + action
- Check
- authority + policy + context
- Output
- decision + evidence
- principal
- Which agent and workload?
- authority
- Which originating task and grant?
- operation
- Which consequential effect?
- boundary
- Where can it be stopped?
Specify the behavior before choosing an interface.
Identify the actor and action
First, identify the autonomous principal, its workload or machine identity and its accountable owner. Then choose one protected consequential action: an API write, payment submission, remediation command, configuration change or physical control operation. A broad “secure agents” objective is too vague to implement.
Classify reads, drafts, recommendations and execution separately. This exposes where a human approval or stronger assurance is required.
- 1. Identify autonomous principal
- 2. Define protected action
- 3. Map authority origin
Map authority and policy
Trace who or what can authorize the task and whether delegation to the agent is permitted. Specify scope, purpose, expiry and sub-delegation rights. Add a policy envelope for action, tool, target, value, time, geography, counterparty and operating state as relevant.
Policy can narrow a valid grant; it cannot give the agent a right the origin never delegated. Model at least one denial case, one escalation case and one revocation case before treating the design as complete.
Place enforcement and evidence
Find the boundary where the tool or API causes an external effect. The decision must occur before that boundary, including alternate execution paths. Decide what happens if the authority service or communication link is unavailable.
Finally define outcome evidence: acting principal, grant chain, policy and context, request, decision, approval, execution response and observed state. This sequence gives a concrete basis for an integration conversation without inventing install commands or a public API.
- 4. Define policy envelope
- 5. Identify runtime enforcement point
- 6. Define outcome evidence
Write the first decision table
Before choosing an interface, list representative requests and expected outcomes. Include a valid in-scope operation, a request for the wrong target, an expired grant, a revoked parent, an unavailable signal and an action that needs human approval. The table makes hidden assumptions visible and gives engineering and security teams a common acceptance test.
For each row, identify what the execution system must do with ALLOW, DENY, ESCALATE or DEGRADE. A decision is only useful if it reliably changes what can execute. The table also reveals which context must be carried across queues, tools and APIs.
Integration Review