Courses / The FDE Engagement / Agents with authority

Lesson 26 of 35 · PremiumCourse syllabus

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1. Technical discovery

Use the sales call to establish what you can actually deliver20 min · Free
Find the constraints that can invalidate the pilot before building it24 min · Free
Write the pilot proposal around a decision you can actually test28 min · Free with sign-in

2. Enterprise integration

Choose the integration path that meets the workflow and can be operated24 min · Free
Carry the caller’s permissions through every data and action boundary28 min · Free with sign-in
Make replay, quarantine and reconciliation part of the pipeline contract30 min · Free with sign-in

3. A model of their world

Give business definitions an executable home28 min · Free with sign-in
Keep link evidence, uncertainty and history in the query30 min · Free with sign-in
Make named actions safe to authorize, retry and recover30 min · Premium
Project: the query runs, the number is wrong, and finance cannot say why75 min · Free with sign-in

4. Deploying in their environment

Choose a deployment you can operate under the actual constraints26 min · Free with sign-in
Recreate the release and prove that its state can recover28 min · Premium
Build the diagnostics you will need when you cannot log in28 min · Premium
Lab: rehearse a customer release and prove the way back120 min · Premium

5. The security review

Bring a security review packet that supports a concrete decision26 min · Premium
Follow data copies through access, deletion and recovery30 min · Premium
Show the model’s data paths, enforced capabilities and audit evidence30 min · Premium

6. The model in production

An evaluation becomes a harness the day it can block a release24 min · Premium
Cost per unit of their work is the number, and it decides the architecture25 min · Premium
Every dashboard is green and the system has been getting worse for a month25 min · Premium

7. When the answer is a model

Write the rule first, even when you are certain it needs a model28 min · Premium
Your model scored 0.94 offline because a column knew the future28 min · Premium
A drift alarm is a reason to investigate before you retrain28 min · Premium

8. Agents with authority

Bound agent actions by authority, consequences and shared limits30 min · Premium
Recover partial runs without guessing whether an action happened30 min · Premium
Promote an action only when its evidence and operating controls are ready30 min · Premium
Enforce every agent's authority at one checkpoint the registry controls30 min · Premium

9. Proving it was worth it

Measure the baseline and distinguish time, capacity and cash28 min · Premium
Separate observed improvement from evidence of causation30 min · Premium
Write the review memo around a decision the evidence supports28 min · Premium
Lab: reconcile the pilot result before recommending expansion90 min · Premium

10. The craft around the work

Make the engagement survive a change of sponsor28 min · Premium
Push back with evidence, feasible choices and clear boundaries28 min · Premium
Transfer operation, decision-making and the ability to change the system30 min · Premium

11. Capstone

Capstone: reconcile and defend a complete engagement dossier420 min · Premium

Promote an action only when its evidence and operating controls are ready

Evaluate autonomy by action and segment using reviewed-case coverage, quality, volume and recovery evidence. Run a promotion gate on a synthetic freight packet, then define demotion behavior for missing telemetry and already-dispatched work.

30 MIN · PREMIUM

By FDEInterviews · Updated Oct 23, 2026

The mental model interviewers reward starts one level deeper than the definition: what the concept buys you, what it costs, and the single trade-off that decides when to reach for it.

Work the concrete example end to end, then name the failure mode most candidates miss — that is the signal that you have used this in production, not just read about it.

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Read the related research

See all 24 related papers →

Free summaries. Key takeaways with a free account; deeper analysis with Premium.

2026 · 10 min breakdownCoding Harnesses: A Source StudyA source-level study of eleven agent systems maps seven harness subsystems. Use its architecture questions while respecting the limits of static and uneven evidence.Read the summary →
2026 · 13 min breakdownAI Agent ReliabilityPrinceton borrowed reliability engineering from aviation and nuclear power, turned it into twelve metrics for AI agents, and found that two years of accuracy gains bought only small reliability gains.Read the summary →
2023 · 12 min breakdownSWE-benchThe benchmark that moved coding evaluation from toy functions to real repositories: 2,294 GitHub issues, each graded by the project's own tests. In 2023 the best model fixed under 2%.Read the summary →

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Harness Engineering for Forward Deployed Engineers →

See where this mechanism sits in the harness around a model: the loop, the instruction map, verification, permissions, credentials, sandboxes, budgets and the customer eval. The 136-page guide carries the 2026 evidence beside each decision, two worked engagements and a tested Python companion. Preview three pages.

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Architecting and Building Enterprise Personal Agents →

See where this fits in an agent that acts for one person: delegated identity, a deterministic gatekeeper, exact-action approvals, memory and recall. The 177-page guide includes four worked deployments and a tested reference build on Google ADK. Preview three pages.