Ideas · Builder Notes
Agent identity, autonomy levels and per-verb permissions
Kognita alpha 0.5 gives every agent an identity, an autonomy level and per-verb permissions, with existing agents failing closed at level 0.
Context
An agent with no identity is an anonymous script with credentials. 0.5 started with who the agent is and what it may do.
Decision
- Agents gained identity fields, a deployment hash with owner approval, a review date that denies when expired, verb and level gates, and kognita agent deploy --manifest.
- Level 4 actions require human approval.
- Promotion needs evidence gates, and step-down is automatic.
Why
Existing agents fail closed at L0 with no systems or tools. A migration should never grant power by default.
Outcome
Agents became governable subjects in their own right.
Open
Autonomy levels are a model, and calibrating them for real use cases needs practice.
Give agents an identity card with an expiry date, and make the expiry deny.
Sources
Kognita is an open-source alpha. This note comes from Kognita PR #54 in the Kognita repository.