excessive agency

The LLM list has one item for agency. The agentic list spends ten on it. The answer that scores explains why, and which new risks only exist once agents act, remember and talk to each other.

Compare actual sources, identities, audiences, effects and persistence. Review what tools add without dismissing text-only harms or assuming user-scoped credentials authorize every task.

Start with the useful task, its data paths and its effective authority. Produce explicit backend invariants, bounded execution and a testable release decision that covers ordinary work as well as denied effects.

Compare each task’s required effects with the functionality, permissions and autonomy the system exposes. Narrow the effective authority at enforceable boundaries while preserving legitimate workflows.

Separate model judgment from enforceable invariants, then inspect the inputs and state transitions used by the policy code. Deterministic code is useful only when its authority and facts are trustworthy.

Design a refund ledger that handles authorization, concurrent reservations, distinct partial refunds and uncertain provider outcomes. A stable retry key helps, but does not enforce the business budget.

Separate reachable authority, forbidden proposals, gate decisions and confirmed effects. Compare designs with matched tasks, explicit denominators and uncertainty; tool counts and zero observed failures are not universal risk scores.