Bound authority
Separate what an agent can attempt from what it may approve, provision, or release.
Useful autonomy depends on an authority boundary the worker cannot widen for itself.
See the failure before the pattern
The machine that said no to my machine
Why independent refusal at a credential boundary made a more autonomous system safer and easier to trust.
I stopped writing the code. I did not stop being the engineer.
A practical supervisor and worker model for delegating implementation while keeping direction, verification, and taste with the human.
Copy the control, then adapt it
Review a production change
A reusable agent skill for independently challenging a release candidate before production approval.
Builder and reviewer role prompts
Two compact prompts that keep completion and falsification in separate agent contexts.
What this pattern is grounded in
Proof items describe real findings or working controls. Sanitized and reconstructed examples say so explicitly. They are evidence for the lesson, not universal guarantees.