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Intelligence is one dependency
Operational software must know who it represents, which systems it may access, which actions it may perform, what state it owns, and when it must stop for review.
The quality of generated text does not answer those questions. They belong in explicit infrastructure that can be tested, observed, and changed independently.
The surrounding control plane
- 01Identity and scoped credentials
- 02Typed tools and system connections
- 03Durable workflow state
- 04Policies and action boundaries
- 05Simulation and evaluation
- 06Approval and escalation
- 07Execution evidence
- 08Monitoring, rollback, and recovery
Separate concerns deliberately
Model
Interprets context or proposes a next step within an assigned task.
Policy
Determines whether a proposed action is allowed, reviewable, or blocked.
Tool
Executes a narrowly defined operation against a system.
Workflow
Carries state, retries, exceptions, approvals, and completion criteria.
Evidence
Makes the run reconstructable without relying on a conversational transcript.
Reliability is a system property
Reliable behavior comes from the interaction of bounded components, not from a prompt asking a model to be careful. The architecture should make unsafe or ambiguous actions difficult, visible, and interruptible.
Sources
Authoritative references
Rules, standards, and guidance can change. The links below were reviewed on September 21, 2026.