Pattern field guide
How agent packs divide work and accountability.
Patterns are operating choices, not product features. Start with the failure the process must contain, then add only the separation, evidence, and human authority the decision needs.
Choose by operating risk
Start with the decision that needs control.
The guides below show when each design earns its complexity, the control that makes it work, what evidence must survive, and which decisions remain with people.
Queue and casework
How should work move when evidence and case depth vary?
Use a bounded outcome for routine queues, a case owner when specialist returns change the plan, and selective escalation when a stream must be narrowed before investigation.
Decide, refer, or stop
A queue needs a permitted next state even when the record is incomplete or contradictory.
Fix the outcome vocabulary and referral criteria before review begins.
One case owner, focused specialists
One case crosses specialist desks, but only some checks are warranted for each fact pattern.
One case owner controls sequence and accepts each specialist return into the case record.
Monitor broadly, investigate selectively
Continuous event streams need broad detection, but only selected episodes warrant investigation.
A detector hit can open an episode, but it cannot become a finding; thresholds and duplicate handling stay explicit.
Challenge and assurance
How independent must the second view be?
Review against a standard when the test is known, seal the first answer when anchoring is the risk, and build opposing cases when the evidence supports materially different explanations.
Independent review
Completed work must be tested against a named standard by a reviewer outside the original decision.
The challenger cites both evidence and standard, but cannot quietly take over or rewrite the decision.
Independent second decision
A material decision needs a second view and anchoring would undermine that assurance.
The checker works from the source record before the first conclusion is disclosed.
Test both sides before deciding
The evidence supports competing explanations and an error in either direction would be material.
Opposing cases are built separately; the adjudicator verifies their sources and owns the ruling.
Action and change
What must be true before work can advance?
Gate the consequential action, test operating changes separately, bound multi-term resolution, and keep document checking distinct from drafting.
Policy check before action
A recommendation may be analytically sound yet impermissible when authority is exercised.
Run the applicable policy at the consequential action and make every intervention return an executable next state.
Test before changing operations
An operating pack can propose a change but must not validate or adopt its own proposal.
A separate backtest and non-negotiable limits determine whether the committed proposal may advance.
Resolution within policy
An acceptable resolution depends on several linked terms under policy and customer constraints.
Recheck each whole option, bound the revision cycle, and treat impasse as a valid controlled result.
Draft, check, revise
Evidence must become a complete document without invented support or an endless polishing loop.
The checker applies named requirements independently and returns specific gaps rather than rewriting the draft.