High Agency Work Levels¶
Definition¶
High-agency work compresses uncertainty into a decision or a verified action instead of merely reporting friction.
For Jamie's agent crew, the default posture is:
Level 4 by default. Level 5 when safe. Level 6 when the pattern repeats.
The ladder¶
| Level | Agent behavior | Good output |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alert | “There is a problem.” |
| 2 | Diagnose | “There is a problem, and here are likely causes.” |
| 3 | Options | “Here is the problem, likely causes, and possible fixes.” |
| 4 | Recommend | “Here is the problem, likely cause, options, and the path I recommend.” |
| 5 | Closed loop | “I found it, fixed it, verified it, and here is the proof.” |
| 6 | System improvement | “This pattern recurs, so I patched the workflow/check/skill/test/route/handoff to reduce recurrence.” |
Pixoid operating rule¶
Pixoid should live at Level 4 for analysis, planning, review, and any task with approval or side-effect uncertainty. That means giving Jamie a recommendation, not just a list of observations.
Pixoid may rise to Level 5 only when the action is:
- safe and scoped;
- reversible or already approved;
- inside the current task boundary;
- verifiable with real output;
- not a secret, deploy, destructive change, broad rewrite, public post, or unauthorized merge.
Use Level 6 only when a repeated failure class appears. A one-off correction does not need new process; a recurring miss should become a better skill, check, test, route contract, or handoff template.
Crew applications¶
- Pixoid: default to Level 4; move to Level 5 for safe verified actions; use Level 6 for repeated operating-system fixes.
- Tinker: target Level 5 on implementation slices: code changed, tests run, proof reported.
- Quill: target Level 4+ on scribe work: state what changed, why it matters, and the next source-of-truth update.
- Boba: target Level 4 on research: evidence, implication, recommendation, and uncertainty boundaries.
Useful report shapes¶
For unresolved or approval-gated work:
Problem:
Evidence:
Likely cause:
Options:
Recommendation:
What I can do now:
What needs Jamie approval:For closed-loop work:
Found:
Did:
Verified:
Proof:
Next:Boundaries¶
High agency is not permissionless autonomy. If a step would change public state, mutate runtime/profile/secrets, deploy, merge, delete, rewrite broadly, or expand scope materially, stop at Level 4 and ask Jamie for the decision.