Glossary
What is a harness autonomy tier?
A harness autonomy tier describes the level of independence an AI agent has inside the harness that orchestrates it, from operator-approved actions to agents acting fully on their own authority inside policy you wrote.
§ 01 Definition
Same record at every tier.
The harness coordinates the work at any tier; what changes between tiers is how much the human sits in the loop.
The substrate produces the same attributable, tamper-evident record at every tier.
§ 02 Questions
Harness autonomy tiers, answered.
What are the autonomy tiers?
The three-tier ladder we use: Supervised (the operator approves actions before they run), Coordinated (agents hand off to each other within policy, handoffs attributed), and Autonomous-within-Policy (agents decide and act inside bounded policy; humans on exceptions). Where the system runs, connected today or air-gapped on the roadmap, is a separate deployment choice, not a tier. This ladder is ours, not an industry standard.
Why do the tiers matter for compliance?
High-risk classifications under the EU AI Act expect documented human oversight, which presses toward Supervised or Coordinated at first. NERC CIP on Bulk Electric System assets presses toward lower-autonomy tiers for any consequential action.
Can the substrate's audit trail support promotion between tiers?
Yes. Promotion is a decision an operator can defend with the accumulated trail at the lower tier: which actions the agent took, what the human approved, what the policy refused, what was escalated, how the outcomes compared to the prior process.
§ 03 Related
Where the term lives.
Regulatory frames
Related