AISA Cross-Layer Contracts

AISA defines a set of explicit cross-layer contracts that govern how constraints, signals, and guarantees propagate across system layers. These contracts ensure that agentic systems remain predictable, governable, and reproducible as they scale in complexity and autonomy. ---

Contract	Primary Purpose	Key Artifacts
Policy	Enforce governance and safety constraints	Tool permissions, approval rules, safety policies, escalation rules
Telemetry	Enable auditability and traceability	Run identifiers, execution traces, tool logs, policy markers, budget signals
Versioning	Ensure reproducibility and controlled change	Models, prompts, tools, workflows, memory artifacts, evaluation suites
Budget	Control cost, latency, and operational risk	Token limits, time limits, tool-call limits, monetary cost ceilings

--- ## Contract Descriptions **Policy** — Defines which actions are permitted, restricted, or require explicit approval, and how safety, escalation, and compliance rules are enforced during runtime execution. **Telemetry** — Specifies the minimum set of signals required to trace, audit, and reproduce agent behavior across executions, enabling accountability and post-hoc analysis. **Versioning** — Ensures that changes in agent behavior are attributable to explicit, versioned artifacts rather than implicit system drift or undocumented configuration changes. **Budget** — Bounds resource usage across tokens, time, actions, and cost to prevent runaway behavior and enable cost- and risk-aware system operation.