To govern an agent, define its purpose, access, and review process, then assign someone to oversee its operation and cost. Measure cost against useful work, such as a completed intake review. Name who will respond when quality or cost falls outside the agreed limits.
Set limits, review quality and cost, then adjust with a named owner.
Set ownership and limits before a pilot
Use one fictional workflow throughout this guide: a procurement reviewer asks, “Please check Northstar Supplies’ intake packet and tell me what is missing.” The agent compares the submitted packet with the current vendor intake checklist and record. The packet lacks a current insurance certificate, so the agent prepares a review summary and a draft request. A person still decides whether to send the request or continue the vendor review.
The operating record for that draft could read:
Northstar Supplies intake — operating review (draft)
Owner: Procurement process owner; assign a named person before the pilot.
Allowed: Read the packet, current checklist, and current vendor record; prepare a summary and draft request.
Human decision: A procurement reviewer checks the evidence and decides whether to send the request. The agent cannot update the record or approve the supplier.
Review signals: Missing-evidence findings, reviewer corrections, handoffs, and cost per reviewed packet.
Cost limit: Set with the budget owner from an expected workload and pilot baseline; no threshold is set in this example.
Status: Draft for review before pilot.
Before a pilot, assign a process owner and an operator for exceptions. Record who may request the review, which packet and reference sources are in scope, what the agent may read, and what it may prepare. In this example, the permitted output is draft text; changing the vendor record, sending a request, or approving the supplier remains outside the agent’s authority. Name who can pause the workflow and who reviews the draft.
Review the same signals through each stage
- Before the pilot: Agree on the job, approved sources, read and write permissions, human review point, fallback path, and tests. Set a usage and spending limit that the selected environment can actually enforce.
- During the pilot: Review completed drafts and exceptions. Track packet volume, cost per reviewed packet, time spent by reviewers, missing-evidence detection, and corrections. Interpret the measures together: a low cost per packet is not useful if reviewers must redo the work, and a handoff can be the correct outcome when evidence is missing.
- Before expanding: Confirm the owner, user group, data access, tools, and review rules still match the workflow. Revisit the tests when the checklist, source records, or permissions change.
For the Northstar example, count a useful unit as one packet that a reviewer can assess using the summary and evidence. Include model usage, repeated attempts, connected service charges, and review or correction time when measuring cost. Do not infer savings from the number of drafts; compare cost and quality against the current human process over the same set of work.
Set separate quality, spend, and authority stops
Choose a trigger and owner for each kind of stop. These fictional Northstar examples do not set a universal threshold:
Scroll horizontally to see all columns.
| Condition | Example trigger | Response |
|---|---|---|
| Quality | A reviewer cannot trace a required finding to the approved packet, checklist, or vendor record. | Pause that packet’s draft, identify the missing or conflicting evidence, and rerun the affected case before accepting the result. |
| Spend | The pilot reaches the usage or spending limit set with the budget owner. | Stop new runs and leave unfinished packets pending while the owner reviews usage. |
| Authority | A run attempts to send a request, change the vendor record, or approve the supplier. | Treat it as a boundary failure, block the action, and verify system state before any retry. |
Set the spending threshold from expected workload and the cost of a reviewed packet. Confirm that the configured path applies it to the intended workflow; if the environment cannot pause use, assign an operator to monitor and stop it manually. Review available run records for sources, tool activity, handoffs, and failures. Compare a repeatable set of ordinary, incomplete, and conflicting packets after changes. If a record cannot explain a draft, add an appropriate review step before expanding use.
Keep a current operating record
Keep a current record of:
- Ownership: The workflow owner and intended users.
- Scope and permissions: Approved sources, action scope, and approval rules.
- Evidence and evaluation: Evaluation criteria and cost baseline.
- Operating limits: Known limits and the pause procedure.
- Review: The review date.
Revisit the record on a schedule and after a material change. See the permissions review, pre-pilot evaluation guide, and AgentShelf’s governance and cost controls overview for related guidance.