Agent Design

The AI Agent Canvas

Nine blocks in three bands. Forcing an agent design onto one page makes omissions visible — an empty block is a conversation you have not had yet. Select any block to see what it captures and how to tell when it is genuinely filled in.

Purpose Why does this agent exist?
01

Job to be done

One sentence, business language, naming the outcome and its current owner
02

Trigger and boundary

What starts it, and what is explicitly out of scope
03

Success and failure definition

Measurable, before build most common empty
Capability What can it do?
04

Tasks and skills

Discrete tasks, and the skills each requires
05

Tools and data

Every system read or written, classified and flagged
06

Orchestration and collaboration

How the work is coordinated, and with whom
Constraint What stops it doing harm?
07

Autonomy profile

Designed level, and the level you can actually operate
08

Borders and escalation

Specific stop conditions, and named recipients 2nd most common empty
09

Governance and observability

Identity, authorization, audit, monitoring, cost ceiling 3rd most common empty

Select a block above to see what it captures, the discipline that makes it useful, and how to tell when it is genuinely filled in rather than nominally complete.

Using it in practice

Run it as a workshop, not a form

Ninety minutes, security, compliance, product, and engineering in the room, and a facilitator allowed to say "that block is still empty." Filling it in alone at a desk produces a document — which is the thing that was not working.

Fill Constraint before finalising Capability

Teams design capability first because it is the fun part. But constraint determines feasible capability: sketch capability, constrain it, then revise capability down.

Treat empty blocks as findings

Each is a predictable production problem discovered early rather than late.

Version it with the agent

When the autonomy profile changes because trust was earned, that is a canvas revision and a governance event. The canvas becomes the reference for what the agent was supposed to do.