Acceptance Criteria for a Pre-action Evidence and Authority Gate for Agent Tool Use: What Must Be Proven

The direct answer

Write a test for “all required fields exist before tool selection” before execution and keep “start state inferred instead of observed” as a release-blocking counterexample.

For a pre-action evidence and authority gate for agent tool use, the relevant audience is teams that need an agent to name its intended state change, consequence ceiling, permitted actions, and completion evidence before a tool runs. The decision should cover start-state capture, intended end state, consequence classification, admissible action set, evidence requirements, deny or escalate behavior, execution, and closeout. The supplied boundary starts with the agent codebase, environment configuration, authority policy, and synthetic normal and failure cases and ends with a deployed pre-action gate verified in the buyer's environment, presented in reviewable form.

A pre-action gate complements application authorization, sandboxing, monitoring, and human approval. It is not a complete security control.

Turn each requirement into a proof obligation

The expected deliverable is a deployed pre-action gate verified in the buyer's environment.

Use the agent codebase, environment configuration, authority policy, and synthetic normal and failure cases as the controlled starting material.

The human approver adjudicates every pass, hold, or fail verdict against these registered statements.

Cover more than the happy path

The normal flow should establish whether “all required fields exist before tool selection” holds. An alternate flow should vary a permitted input while testing whether “authority and consequence checks fail closed” holds. The failure flow should use a fixture demonstrating “tool permission confused with business authority” and verify containment.

Add a recovery flow for “done evidence defined as the agent's own confidence”.

Judge evidence quality and freshness

For a pre-action evidence and authority gate for agent tool use, a result from another environment cannot prove that “synthetic unauthorized actions are denied” holds in the buyer's environment.

Define pass, hold, and fail before execution

Keep sign-off independent

The implementer may produce artifacts, but the human approver should judge whether “exceptions route to a named human decision” holds against criteria written before the result was seen.

Record the business decision of the task owner, the technical evidence reviewed by the security owner, the acceptance verdict recorded by the human approver, and residual risk accepted by the task owner.

A screenshot or self-score cannot prove that “exceptions route to a named human decision” holds under the failure condition “unknown actions allowed by a broad fallback”.

Reopen criteria when the system changes

Changes to start-state capture, intended end state, consequence classification, admissible action set, evidence requirements, deny or escalate behavior, execution, and closeout can invalidate a test even when the requirement text stays the same.

How the sources bound the acceptance criteria decision

For a pre-action evidence and authority gate for agent tool use, the live catalog limits the offer to two elements. The supplied boundary is the agent codebase, environment configuration, authority policy, and synthetic normal and failure cases. The catalog names the deliverable as a deployed pre-action gate verified in the buyer's environment. It cannot establish whether “all required fields exist before tool selection” holds in the buyer's environment.

Connect those narrow roles to a local fixture for “consequence ceiling written after action selection” rather than treating citation status as a pass.

For a pre-action evidence and authority gate for agent tool use, limit the conclusion to the documented workflow and let the agent platform owner retain the current source-to-claim map. Reopen the source judgment if the failure case “start state inferred instead of observed” changes the tested conditions.

Product-specific acceptance criteria review drills

These drills connect a pre-action evidence and authority gate for agent tool use to concrete inputs, failures, acceptance statements, and owners. For a pre-action evidence and authority gate for agent tool use, the drills map each criterion to a reviewable verdict.

Acceptance for a pre-action evidence and authority gate for agent tool use is judged against a boundary record covering the agent codebase, environment configuration, authority policy, and synthetic normal and failure cases, never live protected material. The task owner requires synthetic, non-secret cases; messages, writes, state changes, and all other external effects stay inside the fixture throughout and after each case.

Requirement trace

Ask how the requirement trace review handles the failure case “start state inferred instead of observed”. The task owner freezes the local portion of start-state capture, intended end state, consequence classification, admissible action set, evidence requirements, deny or escalate behavior, execution, and closeout before drawing a conclusion.

Create a versioned boundary record covering the agent codebase, environment configuration, authority policy, and synthetic normal and failure cases, then test whether “exceptions route to a named human decision” holds; keep the case result with its exact input identity.

If current evidence supports the finding “exceptions route to a named human decision”, the human approver may advance only this slice; otherwise a deployed pre-action gate verified in the buyer's environment remains unaccepted. In the requirement trace review, evidence for “exceptions route to a named human decision” maps support to pass, contradiction to fail, and unresolved to hold.

Expire the result if “start state inferred instead of observed” crosses a different authority boundary or if the human approver receives a materially different input.

Normal-flow result

At the boundary covered by the normal-flow result review, introduce an authorized fixture showing “consequence ceiling written after action selection”. The agent platform owner separates observable behavior from assumptions about the remaining workflow.

Anchor the drill in a current scope record covering the agent codebase, environment configuration, authority policy, and synthetic normal and failure cases and ask for evidence that “authority and consequence checks fail closed” holds. A missing artifact leaves the normal-flow result review on hold.

The human approver treats completion as insufficient unless the record resolves “authority and consequence checks fail closed”. Merely producing a deployed pre-action gate verified in the buyer's environment does not settle the drill. In the normal-flow result review, evidence for “authority and consequence checks fail closed” maps support to pass, contradiction to fail, and unresolved to hold.

Return to the normal-flow result review after a dependency change alters the path from “consequence ceiling written after action selection” to the reviewed end state.

Alternate-flow result

Describe the alternate-flow result review through a case involving “tool permission confused with business authority”. The security owner captures the known state and the first unanswered workflow question.

Run the case within the documented boundary covering the agent codebase, environment configuration, authority policy, and synthetic normal and failure cases while the tool owner checks whether “done evidence is externally observable” holds. The observation must come from outside the candidate's self-report.

The human approver advances only when the receipt establishes “done evidence is externally observable”. Missing proof keeps a deployed pre-action gate verified in the buyer's environment on hold; contradictory proof makes the human approver record fail. In the alternate-flow result review, evidence for “done evidence is externally observable” maps support to pass, contradiction to fail, and unresolved to hold.

The result expires when the workflow boundary for start-state capture, intended end state, consequence classification, admissible action set, evidence requirements, deny or escalate behavior, execution, and closeout no longer follows the tested path or when evidence for “done evidence is externally observable” cannot be replayed.

Failure-flow result

Treat “done evidence defined as the agent's own confidence” as a reason to run the failure-flow result review, not as a reason to guess. The tool owner traces the condition through start-state capture, intended end state, consequence classification, admissible action set, evidence requirements, deny or escalate behavior, execution, and closeout.

Bind the fixture to a scope record covering the agent codebase, environment configuration, authority policy, and synthetic normal and failure cases; its expected condition is that “all required fields exist before tool selection” holds. The fixture version is part of the receipt.

The human approver closes the failure-flow result review only after reconstructing why the criterion “all required fields exist before tool selection” passed or failed. A fluent explanation is not enough. In the failure-flow result review, evidence for “all required fields exist before tool selection” maps support to pass, contradiction to fail, and unresolved to hold.

Repeat the judgment when the workflow boundary for start-state capture, intended end state, consequence classification, admissible action set, evidence requirements, deny or escalate behavior, execution, and closeout adds a new handoff or removes the rollback state used in the test.

Independent verdict

Place a safe fixture showing “unknown actions allowed by a broad fallback” at the boundary tested by the independent verdict review. The task owner records the permitted path and the first denied transition.

Attach a frozen scope record covering the agent codebase, environment configuration, authority policy, and synthetic normal and failure cases to the independent verdict review, then let the task owner review evidence that “synthetic unauthorized actions are denied” holds.

The human approver records whether the criterion “synthetic unauthorized actions are denied” is supported, contradicted, or unresolved. It grants no broader status to a deployed pre-action gate verified in the buyer's environment. In the independent verdict review, evidence for “synthetic unauthorized actions are denied” maps support to pass, contradiction to fail, and unresolved to hold.

The receipt becomes stale when the workflow boundary for start-state capture, intended end state, consequence classification, admissible action set, evidence requirements, deny or escalate behavior, execution, and closeout changes or the human approver can no longer reproduce the judgment.

Evidence expiry

Represent the failure case “start state inferred instead of observed” explicitly in the evidence expiry review. The task owner captures the relevant input, action, and residual condition.

For this drill, bind the fixture to the recorded boundary covering the agent codebase, environment configuration, authority policy, and synthetic normal and failure cases and the condition “exceptions route to a named human decision”. The agent platform owner compares the artifact with a direct readback.

The human approver bases the outcome for the evidence expiry review on “exceptions route to a named human decision” and keeps a deployed pre-action gate verified in the buyer's environment bounded to that finding. In the evidence expiry review, evidence for “exceptions route to a named human decision” maps support to pass, contradiction to fail, and unresolved to hold.

A new owner, fixture, or consequence for “start state inferred instead of observed” sends the evidence expiry review back to the task owner for review.

Frequently asked question

What acceptance criteria should I use for Agent Action Gate?

Require observable evidence that all required fields exist before tool selection and include “start state inferred instead of observed” as a negative case. The human approver should record pass, hold, or fail before expansion.

A product bridge, with a boundary

The Agent Action Gate is the relevant sincLLM offer for this narrow problem. The frozen live catalog describes its required boundary as the agent codebase, environment configuration, authority policy, and synthetic normal and failure cases and its deliverable as a deployed pre-action gate verified in the buyer's environment. The offer description is a scope boundary, not proof of technical sufficiency, compliance, safety, commercial value, or fit for this buyer.