One page. Copy it, fill in the blanks, and put your name on it.
This document authorizes one named person to run one named agent inside stated limits, and it prevents that agent from contacting a customer, changing a system of record, or acting on information it has not verified, unless a person has approved that specific action first.
Every agent starts at rung 1. An agent moves up only on recorded evidence. Rung 3 is a ceiling, not a step. Rule 4 applies at every rung.
The agent produces output. A person reviews it, and that person is the one who sends, saves, or acts. The agent cannot complete an action by itself.
Every new agent starts here. There is no fast track and no exception for an agent that worked somewhere else.
Evidence to move up: ______ consecutive runs with no correction needed, reviewed by ______________________, with each review recorded and dated.
An agent may be promoted to act on internal systems without a person pressing the button each time. Internal means a CRM field, a task queue, an internal dashboard, or a channel only employees can see.
Promotion is a decision someone makes and signs, based on the runs recorded at rung 1. It is not automatic and it is not a default that arrives with a new tool version. An agent that has been changed goes back to rung 1.
Evidence to move up: not applicable. Rung 2 is as far as an agent goes.
Anything that reaches a customer is approved by a named person before it goes. Email, in-app message, review request, community post, calendar invite, anything published under the company name.
No number of clean runs promotes an agent past this rule. It does not expire, and it does not get waived for volume, for a deadline, or for a campaign.
Evidence to move up: none exists. This is the ceiling.
The agent reads its instructions and its context from one canonical, human-readable file that a person can open, read, and edit without a developer.
No hidden prompts, no context living in a chat history, no rules that exist only inside a vendor's interface. If a reviewer cannot read what the agent was told, the agent is not reviewable, and an agent that is not reviewable does not run.
Applies at: every rung, permanently.
Regardless of rung, and regardless of who asks:
The agent checks its output against the real source, and where it cannot confirm something it says so and stops. It does not fill a gap with a reasonable guess.
The failure this prevents is specific. An agent asked to thank event attendees read the invite list rather than the check-in list, and drafted warm thank-you notes to people who had not turned up. Every sentence was well written. The underlying fact was wrong, and no amount of review of the writing would have caught it, because the writing was not the problem.
An agent that flags what it could not confirm is doing its job. An agent that never flags anything is not being careful, it is being confident.
Every agent has one human owner, by name, not a team and not a role. The owner is accountable for what the agent produces, reviews it on a stated cadence, and is the person who answers when someone asks why it did what it did.
An agent whose owner leaves, changes role, or stops reviewing is switched off until a new owner takes it on. An agent without an owner does not run.
Fill this in per agent. One page per agent, kept where the team can find it.
| Field | Entry |
|---|---|
| Agent name | |
| What it produces | |
| Human owner (name) | |
| Current rung | 1 / 2 |
| Data sources it reads | |
| Canonical context file (location) | |
| Promotion threshold | ______ clean runs, reviewed by ______________ |
| Date promoted to current rung | |
| Review cadence | |
| Next review date | |
| Approved by |
Adapted from the Customer-Led Growth agent framework. Kevin Lau, The Customer Continuum. Use it, change it, put your own name on it.