What does a mission card record?#
The outcome, stated so an outsider would recognise it. The accountable owner. The people and agents taking part, what agents may and may not do, and which decisions stay with people. The "done when" criteria, the outcome check, a budget that includes human attention, and the escalation path when nobody is available. The idea borrows from mission command, which pairs commander's intent with decentralised execution: say what must be achieved and why, and let those closest to the work choose how.
Why write down what happens when nobody is available?#
Because the system will meet that case, usually at night. An agent that hits a stop condition at midnight will wait, escalate or proceed. Decide which in advance.
The attention budget is the other unusual field. Counting compute is easy and rarely the constraint; counting the senior judgment a mission will consume shows its real cost.