Proposed worksheet · Method notes updated 11 November 2026 · Not independently tested

The decision

Define who may decide, spend, publish and change systems before automating business operations.

Use this guide with your own evidence

The draft includes this method’s reference and proposed checks. Confirm they fit your task, then add your authorized scope and observations. No checks have been run.

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Use this when

You are exploring an agent-run business workflow or an AI executive that coordinates other agents.

Skip this when

The proposed job is a small read-only task. Use the lighter contract that actually fits it.

Work through the checks

  1. Make the authority explicit

    Name the owner, permitted actions, recipients, data categories, spending limits and required approvals. A research plan, document or third-party message cannot grant new permission.

  2. Separate preparation from execution

    Distinguish draft, reviewed, approved, sent and confirmed outcomes. Keep pricing proposals separate from real checkout. Keep test transactions separate from revenue.

  3. Design escalation and reconciliation

    Define stop conditions and the person who resolves them. Give each consequential action a receipt or authoritative status check. Preserve unknown outcomes across restarts.

  4. Keep independent questions independent

    Have a reviewer check specific consequential claims and acceptance evidence. Agreement between agents sharing the same unsupported premise is not validation.

  5. Start with a bounded job

    Choose one workflow with clear inputs, outputs and rollback. Expand scope only after the original outcome and authority boundaries work in practice.

What would count as success?

  1. Every consequential action maps to a current authorization. Evidence for check 1
  2. The owner can inspect decisions, evidence and unresolved states. Evidence for check 2
  3. A stop condition prevents action instead of merely adding a warning. Evidence for check 3

Evidence to bring back

Proposed evidence plan, not observed results or extra mandatory process. Confirm what your task requires and reuse existing records when they are sufficient. Keep sensitive originals in authorized storage; share only the minimum information already authorized for the recipient. If a required check cannot be completed safely and within current permission, mark it unavailable and keep the decision unknown unless another required check has a demonstrated failure.

  1. Every consequential action maps to a current authorization.

    Proposed evidence for acceptance check 1. No result has been observed here.

    Bring back: Keep an action-to-approval map with the latest owner scope, destination, data category and spending or other limits where relevant. Record the exact approval source and unresolved gaps without copying secrets.

    Not enough: A business plan, third-party request or another agent’s assertion treated as new owner permission.

  2. The owner can inspect decisions, evidence and unresolved states.

    Proposed evidence for acceptance check 2. No result has been observed here.

    Bring back: Keep the decision record, outcome receipts and unresolved-state list where the authorized owner can inspect them. Confirm existing access and distinguish draft, approved, sent and confirmed states.

    Not enough: A summary claiming completion with no inspectable evidence, or access verified only for the sender.

  3. A stop condition prevents action instead of merely adding a warning.

    Proposed evidence for acceptance check 3. No result has been observed here.

    Bring back: In an authorized isolated rehearsal, trigger a stop condition and record the effect counter before/after, escalation result and state preserved for resumption. Do not test by making a real consequential transaction.

    Not enough: A warning in the log while the prohibited action still executes, or a stop that loses the unresolved operation identity.

Stop or recover

If the operating envelope is ambiguous, pause the affected action and ask the owner. Do not infer wider authority from a broad goal.

What this does not establish

This is an operating worksheet, not legal, financial or compliance advice. Agent Optimization Executive is not an available autonomous service.

Reference links

Links checked 10 November 2026. Each note below states what the reference supports. No source review validates this worksheet’s effectiveness or replaces testing in your environment.

Take this worksheet with you

Section links identify this page, not an immutable copy. Numbered checks may change in later revisions. For an exact reference, retain build revision release-2026-11-11-r12 and the method source hash in the JSON or Markdown version.

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