Section 3
Trust levels
What an agent is authorized to do, how that authorization is earned, and how quickly it is taken back.
Three levels
Authorization has three levels and no intermediate states. Level 1 observes and advises. Level 2 proposes. Level 3 applies within limits held in code. An agent operating outside the level it holds is a failure of the enforcement path, not of the agent.
Level 1: observe and advise
The agent reads and reports. It holds no write access of any kind. Its output is an observation or a recommendation addressed to a person. Every agent starts here on every procedure, including agents that hold higher levels elsewhere.
Level 2: propose
The agent prepares a complete change and does not commit it. The proposal states the exact action, the expected resulting state, and how that state will be verified. Approval is given per proposal by the human gate, and approval of one is never standing approval for the next.
Level 3: apply within enforced limits
The agent commits changes directly, inside limits that code enforces. The limits state magnitude, frequency, and reach: how large a change may be, how often, and which systems and records it may touch. A change outside the limits is refused at the point of action and reverts to Level 2 behavior.
Levels are held per procedure
A level is granted for one named procedure on one named system. It does not transfer to another procedure, another system, or a copy of the agent running elsewhere. There is no general level and no trusted agent.
Conditions for promotion
All of the following hold before a level is raised: the procedure is qualified under Section 4; a stated number of consecutive runs completed at the current level without unexplained deviation; every Level 2 proposal across that span approved without material edit; and, for Level 3, the limits exist in code and have been tested by attempting to exceed them.
Promotion is an act, not a drift
A level is raised by the human gate in a recorded decision carrying the date, procedure, level, and evidence relied on. It is never inferred from a run of good outcomes, and never granted to save time during an incident.
Revocation is immediate
Any of the following returns the agent to Level 1 for that procedure at once, no investigation required: a mutation that could not be verified; an enforced limit reached unexpectedly; a gap in the audit trail; a change in the underlying system the playbook does not yet describe. Revocation is not a penalty and is not debated in the moment.
Restoration
A revoked agent returns through the promotion path from the beginning, against the corrected playbook. Time served at Level 1 does not substitute for the run count.
Audit trail
Every action at every level writes a record: time, agent, procedure, level held, action, prior state, resulting state, and the approval reference where one applies. Records are append only and never edited afterward. An action that cannot be recorded is not permitted.
A level describes what an agent may do to a procedure. Whether the procedure is fit for an agent at all is decided in Section 4.
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