Autonomy levels explained
Suggest, Draft, Approve, Autonomous — what each level lets an agent do.
Updated Aug 3, 2026
Every agent has an autonomy dial with four positions. The dial is enforced by the execution engine — not by the prompt — so an agent cannot talk itself into more authority.
The four levels
- Suggest (default) — the agent analyzes and recommends. It never touches an external system. Perfect for building trust in week one.
- Draft — the agent prepares the work (a reply, a CRM update) but a human sends it. You see exactly what would have happened.
- Approve — the agent executes end-to-end, but pauses at approval gates for external or irreversible actions. Pending items appear in the Approval inbox with everything needed to decide.
- Autonomous — the agent acts without waiting. Guardrails still apply: tool allowlists, spend caps, blast-radius limits and the kill switch are always on.
Changing the level
Open the agent card and click the dial. Raising autonomy requires the automations:write permission and is recorded in the audit log with before/after values.
Recommended path
Run every new agent in Suggest for a few days → review its would-have-done log → move to Draft, then Approve. Reserve Autonomous for agents with a long clean streak and a passing evaluation suite. The analytics page shows per-agent success rates to back the decision with data.
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