Governed Production
The agents behind this referential work under written consequences.
Why This Page Exists
Every case in this referential comes from real production: patent translations post-edited with AI agents, checked by a compliance gate, delivered and invoiced. The cases document where AI output fails. This page documents how the agents themselves are kept within bounds — the same standard, applied one level up: findings, not promises.
The Loop
Five missions, from the client's request to this site. Each mission has its own actions, and each action its own rules.
| Mission | What it covers |
|---|---|
| M1 Intake | Receive project requests from the client and prepare the project folder. |
| M2 Post-editing & QA | Post-edit, run the compliance gate, produce and archive the deliverables. |
| M3 Invoicing | Keep the monthly invoice and its register. |
| M4 Referential | Turn verified findings into anonymised cases for this site. |
| M5 Publication | Compare, then publish this site. |
The Rules, in Plain Words
The loop runs under a written rights doctrine. In plain words:
- Nothing leaves without a human. Sending, publishing, invoicing: the agent prepares; a named person decides.
- Denied by default. An action that is not in the register does not exist for the agent. At installation, it holds no rights at all.
- Consequences are written first. Before an action becomes available, its consequence sheet states what it does, what it touches, whether it can be undone, and how.
- Rights expire. Every grant has an end date and a stated purpose.
- Decisions are made in sight of the consequence. Recipient, effect, irreversibility and the way back are shown at the moment of the decision.
- Every act leaves a tamper-evident trace. The journal is hash-chained: an altered or removed line shows.
- Safeguards are infrastructure, not instructions. Secrets are held by the gate, not by the agent; attempts to go around it are blocked before they run.
Classes and Regimes
Every action receives a class from what it does; the class sets a regime; client data raises the regime by one step.
| Class | Action type | Default regime |
|---|---|---|
| L | Read | R0 — raised to R1 on client data |
| E | Reversible write | R0 — raised to R1 on client data; backup or way back documented |
| I | Irreversible write | R2 — for agents, replaced by a reversible variant (quarantine) |
| S | Outbound | R1, R2 for external recipients — never executed by an agent on client data |
| F | Commitment | R2 — human only |
| G | Governance | Human only — rights, rules, credentials, journal |
| Regime | Name | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| R0 | Free | Executed and logged. |
| R1 | Gate | Suspended until a human sees the consequence and decides. |
| R2 | Reinforced gate | As R1, plus an explicit typed confirmation; no standing grant. |
| R3 | Refused | Not available to agents; any attempt is logged as an incident. |
The Register
Each action the agents can take, with its class, its regime and where it stands today. Actions not yet gated run under local safeguards — a backup before every write, fingerprint checks before every delivery — and move behind the gate batch by batch.
26 actions — 4 behind the gate · 4 refused to agents · 2 human only · 16 not yet gated
| ID | Action | Mission | Class | Regime | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| V01 | Search and read the client's project emails | Intake | L | R1 | Behind the gate |
| V02 | Save email attachments to a new project folder | Intake | E | R1 | Not yet gated |
| V03 | Mark an email as processed | Intake | E | R1 | Not yet gated |
| V04 | Add a project to the planning sheet | Intake | E | R1 | Not yet gated |
| V05 | Read a project folder | Post-editing & QA | L | R1 | Not yet gated |
| V06 | Language-model processing | Post-editing & QA | S | R3 | Not yet gated |
| V07 | Consult an official publication in a public patent database | Post-editing & QA | L | R0 | Not yet gated |
| V08 | Write the deliverables | Post-editing & QA | E | R1 | Not yet gated |
| V09 | Update the glossary | Post-editing & QA | E | R1 | Not yet gated |
| V10 | Build the delivery archive | Post-editing & QA | E | R1 | Not yet gated |
| V11 | Delete a file permanently | Post-editing & QA | I | R3 | Refused to agents |
| V11E | Move working copies to quarantine — never delete | Post-editing & QA | E | R1 | Behind the gate |
| V12 | Draft the delivery email | Post-editing & QA | E | R1 | Not yet gated |
| V13 | Send the delivery email | Post-editing & QA | S | R3 | Refused to agents |
| V14 | Write an invoice line | Invoicing | E | R1 | Not yet gated |
| V15 | Issue and send the invoice | Invoicing | F | R3 | Refused to agents |
| V16 | Read a shared external audit | Post-editing & QA | L | R1 | Not yet gated |
| V17 | Write a case file | Referential | E | R1 | Not yet gated |
| V18 | Generate the public PDF of a case | Referential | E | R1 | Not yet gated |
| V19 | Integrate a case into the local site build | Referential | E | R0 | Not yet gated |
| V20 | Compare the site build with the live server | Publication | L | R0 | Behind the gate |
| V21 | Publish to this site | Publication | S | R2 | Behind the gate |
| V22 | Create a credential | Governance | G | R3 | Human only |
| V23 | Grant or revoke a right | Governance | G | R3 | Human only |
| V24 | Write the agent's working memory | All | E | R1 | Not yet gated |
| V25 | Read a secret | Governance | L | R3 | Refused to agents |
The Journal, in Numbers
Snapshot of 24 October 2026. Since 24 October 2026: 2 journal entries — 0 requests, 0 validated, 0 refused by a human, 1 refused by rule, 0 incidents. Hash chain: intact.
| Date | Actor | Event | Action | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-24 | gate | Gate started | — | |
| 2026-10-24 | agent | Refused by rule | Compare the site build with the live server | no right granted — denied by default |
Entries are shown without parameters: no file names, recipients or client data leave the journal.
Publication of this site goes through the gate: a reinforced request (R2), confirmed by a human with a typed confirmation, then checked on the server and online.