AI agents · Our specification

What we build into every agent

Eight conditions. Not features you choose between — every agent we build has all eight, whether a client asks or not.

We publish it because it is also the list of questions we expect to be asked. Take it to any supplier, including us.

Version 1.0 · 16 October 2026

  1. 1 Configured, not blank

    It starts knowing how your business does this work

    An agent that starts from nothing is a general tool with your documents in it. Before yours does a day's work we configure what it knows about your business: your own rules in your own wording, the vocabulary your people use, the thresholds that separate routine from needs-attention, and what it should carry forward from one piece of work to the next. That is built from your material, by us, as part of the build. It is only as good as that material, so the first fortnight is where the gaps show and where we expect to correct them.

    If a regulator or an auditor would see it
    A generic agent produces work that is plausible and not yours, and the time goes into correcting the agent instead of doing the work.
    If it is your own duty to a client
    You teach it in every conversation, and what it learns stays with whoever was talking to it.
    If it is money, a relationship or time
    It gets the vocabulary of your trade wrong in front of customers.

  2. 2 Separate records

    Your records sit in a database that holds nobody else's records

    Your agent is one deployment, owned by your business, and the records it accumulates as it works live in your own database rather than alongside anybody else's. Shared storage with careful separation is a promise about somebody else's software, and it is not a promise a client can verify. A separate deployment removes the question instead of answering it.

    If a regulator or an auditor would see it
    On shared storage, establishing whether a boundary held means reading software you do not own.
    If it is your own duty to a client
    Client confidentiality is a duty you carry personally, held inside a system you cannot inspect.
    If it is money, a relationship or time
    A supplier's other clients may include your competitor, and what leaks is your pricing or your customer list.

  3. 3 A written exit

    There is a written procedure for leaving, from the start

    You get the sequence in writing: the steps that end with you holding your records in a form you can use, and us holding nothing. It is part of the engagement rather than something negotiated later. An agent doing real work accumulates your process knowledge for as long as you run it, and without a written exit the price at renewal is whatever the supplier decides. We would rather compete on the work.

    If a regulator or an auditor would see it
    An exit plan is a document an auditor asks to see, and an assurance that something would be worked out is not that document.
    If it is your own duty to a client
    Client files become hostage to a renewal you cannot walk away from.
    If it is money, a relationship or time
    Every month of real work hands a supplier more of your process knowledge, and that accumulation becomes their leverage.

  4. 4 Model portability

    The model is a configuration choice, including your own

    You can bring your own model, from any major provider, or run one inside your own network, and nothing else about the agent changes. What governs its behaviour is not part of the model, so it travels with the agent rather than with the provider. Supported is not the same as equivalent, though: before go-live we run the agent against the endpoint you will actually use and show you the result, rather than telling you it works.

    If a regulator or an auditor would see it
    Where a class of work may not leave your premises, an agent that runs only one way cannot do that work at all.
    If it is your own duty to a client
    A privileged file may not be sendable to a third party, which rules a fixed-provider agent out of your most valuable work.
    If it is money, a relationship or time
    A price rise or a policy change at a company you have no relationship with arrives without warning, with nowhere to move to.

  5. 5 Credential custody

    Credential custody is named in the contract

    An agent reaches a model by presenting a credential, and that credential bills someone. Who creates it, where it is kept, who can read it and how often it is replaced are written down before anything is deployed. This is the one item no architecture settles: in every arrangement we know of, including ours, a person creates that credential and a machine holds it. A supplier who says their design makes the question disappear has either not thought about it or is hoping you have not.

    If a regulator or an auditor would see it
    An unnamed third party with standing access is a finding, and far cheaper to settle before a deployment than during one.
    If it is your own duty to a client
    You could not tell a client who, outside your own firm, was in a position to act on their matter.
    If it is money, a relationship or time
    An open liability with no named owner, which surfaces as an argument at exactly the wrong moment.

  6. 6 It stops when unsure

    When it does not know, it stops and asks a person

    Put a question to the agent that cannot be answered from what you have supplied and it stops, says what it needs, and records that it asked. The request goes to a named person and it is still findable a month later. This is the failure worth paying for: an agent able to carry on past a question it should have asked produces its worst work with no sign that anything went wrong, and the cost lands on whoever acted on it.

    If a regulator or an auditor would see it
    A figure reaches a committee with nobody able to say where the figure came from.
    If it is your own duty to a client
    Advice goes out under your name resting on something nobody actually supplied.
    If it is money, a relationship or time
    A confident wrong answer that nobody checks, because it looked finished.

  7. 7 A readable record

    The record of what it did is readable by someone outside the business

    Every piece of work has a record you can follow from the first instruction to the final approval: what the agent was asked, what it decided, what it handed to a person, who approved the output, and what is still outstanding. System logs are not this. A log tells an engineer what the software did. A record tells a board, an auditor or a regulator what the business did and who stood behind it.

    If a regulator or an auditor would see it
    A routine review becomes an exercise in proving a negative.
    If it is your own duty to a client
    You cannot evidence who was accountable for work that went out under your firm's name.
    If it is money, a relationship or time
    A disputed invoice becomes an argument you have no way to settle.

  8. 8 Checked output

    Output is checked by machine before a person sees it

    Nothing reaches a person until it has been checked by machine rather than by somebody's good intentions. No figure is stated without a source. A draft carries a mark saying it awaits approval until a named person approves it. Names, references and identifiers are reproduced exactly as given, never tidied into something neater. A document that fails one of those is not delivered, because a warning attached to a document that still goes out is a warning nobody reads.

    If a regulator or an auditor would see it
    An unsourced figure in a regulator-facing document is the exact vendor behaviour you are supposed to catch.
    If it is your own duty to a client
    A tidied reference is the kind of error the other side finds first, and you account for.
    If it is money, a relationship or time
    An identifier improved rather than copied makes a schedule impossible to reconcile against somebody else's records.

The agent for your work

Those eight are in it whatever the work is. What the agent actually does is the part that depends on you.

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