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Agent-to-agent interoperability

Delegation contract design

Make delegated work precise enough to accept, reject or recover

Handoffs fail because participants interpret instructions differently. The decision is how to make delegated work precise enough to accept, reject or recover. The work begins with your actual workflow and looks for the evidence that separates intended behaviour from a consequential exception. It is particularly relevant to workflow architects and business-process owners. A useful outcome is an explicit account of what was examined, what remains uncertain, and which decision the evidence can support.

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The interaction contracts relationship

  1. Starting evidenceTask requests

    Establish the basis for task objective.

  2. Decision boundaryAction limit

    Bound authority and permitted onward delegation.

  3. Decision artefactDelegation contract

    Retain the scoped finding and its unresolved dependencies.

Proposed working model. Untested peers require their own compatibility evidence.

Decision

Frame the decision around task objective

Questions and the evidence they need

Criterion / evidenceTask objective
Inspect task requests for the relevant constraint or observation.
Criterion / evidenceAction limit
Inspect input schemas for the relevant constraint or observation.
Criterion / evidenceAcceptance state
Inspect authority limits for the relevant constraint or observation.
Read each criterion against the available evidence before deciding that additional work is needed.

The decision is how to make delegated work precise enough to accept, reject or recover. This is relevant to workflow architects and business-process owners when handoffs fail because participants interpret instructions differently. Name the affected workflow, the consequence of a wrong decision, and the owner who can act on the result. The initial discussion should establish which evidence is already available and which uncertainty is material enough to investigate.

The specific failure hypothesis is that a receiving agent completes a plausible interpretation while the sender expects a different business result. It remains a hypothesis until examined in the deployment. Existing internal tests or operating records may already resolve it; identify the uncovered question before commissioning additional work.

Mechanism

Delegation contracts should define terminal outcomes

Relationships within interaction contracts

Source or conditionTask objective
State the required business result and inputs.
Crossing or choiceAction limit
Bound authority and permitted onward delegation.
Consequence or decisionAcceptance state
Define evidence, cancellation, and exception handling.
Compare authority and state at the receiving boundary. Each relationship needs evidence in the actual scope.

What this specialty examines

A delegation contract should define a result the receiving agent can accept or reject. Include inputs, allowed actions, resource scope, evidence requirements and terminal states. The contract also needs a way to report ambiguity rather than forcing a confident interpretation.

The review should define objectives, permitted actions, required evidence, progress rules and terminal outcomes. Identify the normal route, relevant exceptions and the authoritative record of the outcome. Inspect the relevant business-system record, enforcement event or process evidence alongside any reported status. Keep incomplete cases visible, with an explanation of what their absence prevents the owner from concluding.

The tradeoff to make explicit

For this decision, detailed contracts reduce ambiguity while overprescription can restrict valid specialist methods. Compare the available design or operating choices against the same intended outcome. If one option removes a required control or changes the task boundary, describe that difference before treating its apparent simplicity, speed or lower effort as an improvement. The decision should expose the tradeoff instead of burying it in an aggregate score.

Preparation

Connect the working inputs to the boundary being examined

Evidence packet for task objective

Illustrative working format

BasisTask requests
Identify provenance and the specific decision this material can inform.
ContextInput schemas
Match this description to the deployed or proposed boundary being examined.
ObservationAuthority limits
Name the custodian and the conditions requiring a refreshed version.
DependencyAcceptance criteria
Separate required outcomes, consequential exceptions, and reviewer interpretation.
Illustrative preparation record. Availability, revision, and handling need confirmation.

Start with task requests, input schemas, authority limits and acceptance criteria. Identify the owner, revision and operating context of each source. Sanitised examples may support initial design, but differences from actual conditions should remain explicit. Where direct access is unsuitable, a customer-controlled evidence or execution route may be considered, with agreed handling and retention.

The scope also needs the integration owner, agreed expectations for a representative interaction case, and the authority to inspect the relevant boundary. Specify what evidence would distinguish the failure in which a receiving agent completes a plausible interpretation while the sender expects a different business result from acceptable behaviour. If stakeholders disagree about intended behaviour, resolve the interpretation before classifying the observed difference as a defect.

How the work proceeds

Carry task objective through to an accountable finding

From the scoped material to a decision record

  1. Establish conditionsTask requests

    Agree the task meaning at the sending boundary.

  2. Examine the relationshipAction limit

    Apply the scoped check to acceptance state.

  3. Retain the findingDelegation contract

    Record the evidence, open dependencies, and the owner’s next decision.

Proposed sequence; resolve interpretation or access gaps before relying on the next step.

Fix the interaction contract and versions

Assemble task requests, input schemas, authority limits and acceptance criteria with workflow architects and business-process owners. Identify the participating implementations, interface revisions, authority assumptions and intended business result. Prepare messages and task-state examples from both sides, including an interrupted exchange and a disputed or incomplete outcome. The preparation output is a paired contract fixture showing what each participant expects and which differences would prevent the workflow from completing correctly.

Run and compare both sides of the exchange

Specify progress, cancellation and failure ownership. Test whether the sender recognizes partial completion and whether the receiver can request clarification. Flexible specialist methods can remain allowed while required business outcomes and authority stay fixed.

Choose the contract or integration change

Summarise the comparison in a delegation contract with acceptance, cancellation and exception semantics. Classify each mismatch as interface validation, business meaning, identity, task state or operating behaviour. Decide whether to change a participant, add an explicit adapter rule, narrow supported combinations or defer the connection. Validate the affected pair again and preserve limitations that translation cannot resolve, especially around cancellation, authority and partial completion.

Indicative artefact

Make the delegation contract usable by its owner

Delegation contract

Illustrative working format

Annotated fieldDelegation contract
Specify the acting role, allowed resource effect, and enforcement boundary.
Annotated fieldAcceptance
Define the required observation and who resolves disagreement about acceptance.
Annotated fieldCancellation
Name the unresolved condition, next action, and accountable owner.
Illustrative artefact structure, not a completed engagement or an observed result.

A useful decision artefact is a delegation contract with acceptance, cancellation and exception semantics. Supporting material may include selected cases, configuration or process records, evidence references, a disagreement log and prioritised actions. Retain the case selection rationale and material disagreements alongside the result; otherwise the result may be mistaken for complete coverage.

Illustrative scenario

Examine acceptance state through a constructed exception

A constructed case and its decision paths

Illustrative scenario

  1. SituationTask objective

    A delegated task returns a summary without the required completion evidence.

  2. Question to examineAction limit

    Compare the returned summary with the contract's required evidence.

  3. Conditional next actionAcceptance state

    Keep the task incomplete or disputed when acceptance conditions are missing.

Fictional example. No executed test, customer engagement, or measured outcome is implied.

Consider a fictional situation: a coordinator asks for supplier review without specifying whether the result should be a summary, a risk flag or an approved decision. The scenario is illustrative, with no client engagement, executed test or measured improvement implied.

For supplier review, agree whether the requested output is factual research or an approval decision. The receiver may produce evidence and unresolved questions without being authorised to approve. The contract should make that division visible to both participants.

Scope and next action

Keep the conclusion within named implementations and revisions

Confirm fit before the next commitment

Included boundaryTask objective
This review is limited to named implementations and revisions.
PrerequisiteTask requests
The relevant owner must confirm access and the intended operating conditions.
Claim limitDelegation contract
Untested peers require their own compatibility evidence.
Bring the triggering change and existing evidence; resolve the dependency that could alter the decision.

Compatibility is assessed for named implementations, versions, features and workflows. It does not establish universal conformance, vendor endorsement or interoperability with untested peers. Any engagement depends on an agreed scope, qualified team, authorised access and confirmed availability. Bring the affected workflow, its current configuration or process, the triggering change and the evidence already available. The immediate scope question is prompted by the situation in which handoffs fail because participants interpret instructions differently; confirm which missing observation would change the owner’s next action.

Ways to engage

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A little more clarity

Questions to consider.

Start with the questions that shape a better decision.

What belongs in a delegation contract beyond a natural-language task?

Specify inputs, expected outputs, permitted actions, resource scope, acceptance criteria, progress, cancellation and failure ownership. Natural-language objectives can remain useful within that explicit contract.

Which records define delegated acceptance criteria?

Start with task requests, input schemas, authority limits and acceptance criteria. Record their revision, owner and relationship to the intended workflow. Missing context should be identified before interpreting outcomes; a sanitised fixture is useful only when its relevant differences from the operating case are understood.

How should partial completion and cancellation be tested?

Define objectives, permitted actions, required evidence, progress rules and terminal outcomes. Compare both participants' accepted inputs, task states and results under a named interface revision. Include interrupted or delayed interactions. Parser acceptance should not be treated as agreement about business meaning, authority or completion.

What belongs in a delegation contract?

The proposed output is a delegation contract with acceptance, cancellation and exception semantics. Include the selected conditions, supporting observations, unresolved differences and next decision. A reviewer should be able to follow each important conclusion back to its evidence and understand the limits without depending on an undocumented explanation from the author.

When should a receiving agent ask for clarification?

Ask for clarification when inputs, acceptance criteria or authority are ambiguous enough to change the result. The receiving agent should not choose a consequential interpretation simply to avoid returning an incomplete task.

What if existing evidence already answers the question?

Review its scope, provenance and configuration before proposing new work. Existing work from workflow architects and business-process owners may already be sufficient. In that case, capture the decision, unresolved limitations and the change that would require another review. Additional assessment should address a real gap.

What would make the findings inconclusive?

Missing task requests, input schemas, authority limits and acceptance criteria can prevent a reliable interpretation, depending on the case. Record the specific missing observation and its implication. The owner can supply evidence, narrow the claim or defer the dependent decision; an incomplete case should not silently be counted as a pass.

Start with the decision you need to make.

Tell us about the agent workflow you want reviewed, and where you need greater clarity. Scope and availability are confirmed together.

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Connected disciplines

Agent message-schema governance

Control message changes without breaking agent interactions. The review connects schema registries, consumers, version policies and message examples to a bounded review of agent interaction contracts, giving the integration owner a clearer basis for the next action.

Protocol authentication review

Verify who is connecting through an agent protocol. The review connects issuer configuration, audience expectations, peer identity rules and transport setup to a bounded review of agent interaction contracts, giving the integration owner a clearer basis for the next action.

Protocol authorisation review

Define what an authenticated agent may request through a protocol. The review connects task action catalogues, peer roles, resource scopes and enforcement records to a bounded review of agent interaction contracts, giving the integration owner a clearer basis for the next action.