ENGINEERING NOTES / REALIADAD TECH NOTES
A useful agent needs boundaries.
Why typed contracts, narrow permissions and bounded execution belong in the first design.
Treat model output as untrusted input
Check the shape and allowed values of a proposed action before executing it. A well-written instruction is not a substitute for validation in application code.
Keep authority in the application
Give each tool a narrow purpose. The application should decide whether a user can access a record, whether an action needs approval and whether an operation is within budget.
Put a ceiling on work
Set explicit timeouts, retry limits and execution budgets. When the budget is exhausted, return a useful failure state rather than allowing an open-ended chain of actions.
Test the unhappy path
Include invalid input, unavailable dependencies, duplicate events and unauthorised requests in the test plan. Trace the outcome so an operator can understand what happened without guessing.