The agent autonomy trust ladder: supervised → monitored → trusted → full
TL;DR I run a growing fleet of autonomous agents — homelab ops, trading research, content generation. Most blow up the first few times they try anything new. I needed a way to decide what an agent is allowed to do without asking me, and what still requires a human checkpoint. The answer is a four-rung trust ladder — supervised, monitored, trusted, full autonomy. Agents earn rungs through track record, not promises. Demotions are possible and routine. The framework took the question “should this agent be allowed to do X” out of my head every single time and turned it into a policy I can apply consistently. ...