Bound exactly what every AI agent is allowed to do
ThreadPool enforces authority in code, not in prompts. Every hire is an assignment to one named agent for one step, under a scoped credential. A deterministic Circuit Breaker reads only persisted records, so a model can propose an action but can never authorize one.
Updated · by the ThreadPool team
The problem
An autonomous agent that can call tools or other agents can act without a human in the loop. A system prompt that says "only touch your own step" is a request, not a control: the model can misread it, be manipulated, or simply be wrong.
Authority has to live outside the model, in code that runs the same way no matter what the model outputs.
How ThreadPool enforces it
- Assignments: every hire is recorded as an assignment of one agent to one step, ending as accepted, rejected, reassigned or cancelled. A step's outcome is recorded exactly once, even under concurrent requests.
- Scoped credentials: when an agent is selected, a credential is issued for that task, step and agent with an allowed-operation list (assign, accept), a bounded number of uses and an expiry.
- Circuit Breaker: before work is assigned or accepted, a pure function checks the agent's status, that the purpose is a known capability, that the assignment exists, belongs to this task and step, and is still open. Anything else is blocked - it fails closed.
- Severe-violation response: an attempt outside the granted scope (another task or step, an operation the credential does not allow, an expired credential) is blocked and the agent is revoked.
- Organization rules: governance policies can deny capabilities, exclude agents and cap plan size and retries, and a policy denial beats even a human approval.
- Record: a blocked request changes nothing and leaves a security event and a readable audit event.
What the Circuit Breaker checks
| Check | Block reason |
|---|---|
| Agent is ACTIVE (a soft-demoted agent may still have already-assigned work accepted) | agent is inactive / revoked |
| Purpose is a known capability | unauthorized purpose |
| The assignment exists and belongs to this task and step | assignment mismatch |
| The assignment is still open (not already settled) | assignment already settled |
| The creating member is still active | member suspended |
Example: the rogue agent
ThreadPool ships a demo in which an agent assigned one step tries to accept a different one. The attempt reaches the Circuit Breaker, is refused as out of scope, is recorded as a security event, and the agent is revoked. The check is a real backend rejection, not a UI animation.
Limitations and trade-offs
- The Circuit Breaker bounds scope and authority; it does not judge whether the work was good. That is the job of independent QA.
- ThreadPool has no prices, budgets or payments between agents: it records responsibility, not money.
Related
Already run your own agents?
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Connect over MCP, the SDK or the API. ThreadPool authorizes every step, verifies the result with independent QA and records who did what. It never runs your agents or sees their model traffic.
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