Add two agent-era principles: autonomy follows risk, reason broadly execute narrowly - #128
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Both are restatements, not proposals. Nothing an agent may do changes. "Autonomy follows risk" is what the ten gates already implement, and what agent-era-invariants.md summarises in one line as "agents have wide latitude inside the gates". The gates page opens with mechanics rather than rationale, so someone meeting a situation the list does not cover has a list to pattern-match against and no principle to reason from. That page admits as much: the gate list is "a floor, not a ceiling". This gives the floor a reason. It also says outright that accountability is the thing that does not scale, which the collaborator statement establishes but the principles page never repeats. "Reason broadly, execute narrowly" is the one genuinely absent idea. Nothing in operating-model/, invariants/ or workflows/ states that agents should hold wider read access than write access, though it is the assumption behind read-only review tooling and query-only data access. It is framed here as a safety mechanism rather than a concession, because narrow read access causes the failure modes the collaborator statement already names: the change that ignores an existing caching layer, or reimplements logic that exists elsewhere. Placed after "Standards lead to better code" rather than appended, so they read as part of how we work rather than a bolted-on AI section. Only "Autonomy follows risk" is added to the testable list, mapped to the gates. "Reason broadly, execute narrowly" describes how access is granted rather than something CI can check, so forcing it into either bucket would overclaim.
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abienkowski
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Sep 28, 2026
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Description
Adds two principles the handbook already relies on but never states. Both are restatements of
existing design, so nothing an agent may do changes.
Autonomy follows risk is what the ten gates already implement, and what
agent-era-invariants.mdsummarises as "agents have wide latitude inside the gates". The gates page opens with mechanics
rather than rationale, so a reader meeting a situation the list does not cover has nothing to reason
from, though that page calls itself "a floor, not a ceiling". This gives the floor a reason, and says
outright that accountability is the one thing that does not scale.
Reason broadly, execute narrowly is the genuinely absent idea. Nothing in
operating-model/,invariants/orworkflows/states that agents should hold wider read access than write access,though it is the assumption behind read-only review tooling and query-only data access.
Placed with the other how-we-work entries rather than appended as an AI section. Only the first is
added to the testable list; the second describes how access is granted rather than something CI can
check.
Issues
Closes: none.