16. Who decides which work agents do?

Every agent has a named human owner, and no agent runs on its own without one. People decide which work goes to agents, in sprint planning or in support triage. Work with a repeatable pattern suits an agent: support requests, customer customizations, changes to workflows and forms, new fields and custom reports. An agent takes on a pattern once it has a record of reliable results on that pattern. New scope stays with people, because a new feature needs product, design and architecture judgment. Agents earn autonomy over five levels, from suggesting a change to acting without review. Each step up is recorded in a written agreement that names the evidence, the threshold, the person who approved it, and the conditions for stepping back down. When an agent's results fall below the threshold, the agent steps back down automatically. The agents that run impact analysis and pull request checks typically operate at the fourth level, where people review their results on a regular schedule.

On the site: Which Work Goes to Agents · Progressive Autonomy · The Five Levels