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Systems

Agent Centered Design

The definitive operating discipline and HAAM standard for governed human-agent teaming.

Operational Discipline · The HAAM Standard

Agents don't have an intelligence problem. They have a decision problem.

Hand enterprise software delivery to autonomous agents and you get a decision graph with most humans removed from the middle — and almost nobody instruments it. Agent Centered Design (ACD) is the practice of designing systems around the explicit decisions people and agents make together.

The Human-Agent Alignment Map (HAAM)

7-Row Context Contract

Every work package carries a strict 7-row context contract before dispatch. A blank cell is never hidden; it is reported loudly. No agent is dispatched over unaddressed ambiguities.

1. PeopleAccountable human authority. Exactly who answers for the deliverable.
2. AgentsNamed autonomous actors with declared jobs (Planning, Production, Verification) and modes (drafts vs. acts).
3. ContextThe exact working data: what it is, where it lives, and its structured form.
4. ReferenceStanding knowledge, skills, and standards identical on every run.
5. GovernanceData classification, access reach, verification method, and dispatch readiness rules.
6. ExceptionsExplicit pre-committed next moves for data gaps, conflicting sources, test failures, or customer rejections.
7. HandoffCustomer, format, destination, and verifiable acceptance criteria.

Protocol Foundations

Lemmata Content-Addressed Pins

All decisions, requirements, and patterns are pinned via immutable content hashes (cc://<Type>/<id>@sha256:<hash>). When an upstream standard moves, downstream briefs are alerted before action occurs.

Anti-Rubber-Stamping Human Gates

Approval gates measure genuine human review latency. Ceremonial sub-second approvals are flagged and rejected, ensuring true human responsibility on high-risk boundaries (auth, PHI, finance, infrastructure).

Adopt the Agent Centered Design Standard

Explore the ACD book manuscript, corporate certification workshops, or pilot the HAAM standard in your enterprise engineering teams.

Explore ACD Book & FunnelInquire About Team Workshops