Governing for Answers

Pillar 03 · Automation

A4 Agent Permissions Standard

An agent should never be able to do more than its owner would sign off.

Form Document and YAML

What it's for

An agent that sends, changes or approves things can make thousands of decisions an hour. If it runs under a person's account or a shared service account, nobody can tell what it did, and it can do anything that account can. This standard sets the permissions every agent must have: its own identity, the least access it needs, limits on what it may do, a log of everything it does, and a tested way to stop it.

What you get

  • The standard Seven requirements
  • By risk tier More risk, tighter limits
  • Permission record One record per agent
  • As code A permission manifest
  • Checks Before go-live

How it connects

One record per S1 agent: C3's charter is the business agreement it enforces, and S4's check covers the model it calls.

A flavour of the worked example

From the worked example PR-EX-06
Agent identitysvc-agent-invoice-coding
Explicitly deniedsuppliers: change bank details, payments: any, cost centres: create, change
Data class ceilingConfidential
How to stop itDisable identity svc-agent-invoice-coding in the identity provider
Last stop testStopped in under 2 minutes; queue held

A few fields from one record of the toolkit's worked example, with long text shortened.

Next step

Guided build coming next.

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