What five questions define it?#
For each class of work: what may the agent do without asking, when must it stop, who is asked, what evidence comes with the ask, and what happens if nobody answers. The last one is the question most often left unanswered, and it is the one that decides what happens at 2am.
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What is the goal?#
Maximum useful autonomy inside justified trust boundaries. Not the most autonomy that can be defended in a meeting, and not the least that would be safe — the most that the evidence currently supports, with a written reason for where the line sits.
The line widens through automation follows trust and narrows through a contraction trigger. Where a person is needed only because the system lacks context, validation or rollback, that is system debt rather than a real boundary.