Upper-right panel
Four distinct responsibilities
Interpreting means understanding an intention and connecting it to business terminology. Deciding means producing a governed, explainable decision. Orchestrating coordinates the actions that have been decided. Executing carries out their effects through the appropriate mechanisms.
SMBC-GAF© separates these responsibilities so that an interpretation or proposal cannot directly change business state. This separation makes actions understandable and traceable. The four boxes represent neither four mandatory consecutive stages nor four technical products to install. One technology may fulfil several responsibilities, provided each remains attributable and any genuinely required independence is preserved.
Yellow loop · discovery and co-construction
Establish sufficiently clear meaning
Before producing a solution, the intended outcome, business concepts, rules and exceptions that determine that outcome must be understood. Establishing sufficiently clear meaning means making these elements explicit enough to derive candidates without inventing a missing decision.
People and agents can explore journeys, identify contradictions and prepare options. Choices that remain open must be resolved by the competent sources. This search for clarity does not require knowing everything in advance: it concerns the derivation under consideration. A new discovery may reopen the meaning and require reassessing what had seemed sufficiently determined.
Yellow loop · bounded business outcome
IGR · define a bounded business outcome
The Governed Realization Increment, or IGR, brings together the references needed to prepare a coherent, bounded business outcome. It identifies the expected outcome, its scope, the business capabilities anchoring it, applicable sources and decisions that remain open.
Its value lies in showing what is sufficiently determined for derivation at a given revision. The IGR refers to the rules and contracts responsible for meaning; it does not replace them. It is neither a business capability, a mission nor a development branch. Its use is conditional, and its assessment may be withdrawn when the sources change.
Yellow loop · G1–G7 and READY-FOR-DERIVATION
Meaning sufficiently determined
The seven G1–G7 facets jointly examine the outcome, concepts, rules, behaviour, data, expected evidence and dependencies. They help reveal gaps that would otherwise force an agent to invent a choice. Coverage before a baseline is frozen also makes relevant omissions visible.
READY-FOR-DERIVATION means the meaning needed to produce candidates is sufficiently determined for the revisions assessed. It remains revisable and revocable. This status permits candidate derivation when their content is sufficiently determined. By itself, it does not authorize changing artefacts, executing, integrating or publishing. The seven facets form a joint assessment, not seven successive stages or seven human approvals.
Central fan · architecture, contracts, views and tests
Derive what is needed
Derivation means producing a candidate from sources whose relevant content is sufficiently determined. Depending on the need, that candidate may take the form of an architecture, a contract, a view or tests. The diagram provides examples without imposing an exhaustive list or an order among them.
An artefact that does not yet exist can be prepared when its content follows from the sources without requiring a new business or architectural decision. If a determining choice is missing, it must be made visible. A derivable candidate is not an authorized implementation: its actual creation or modification remains subject to applicable authority. Derivation does not mean automatic adoption.
Teal loop · preparation and O1–O4
DPE · prepare for execution
The Execution Preparation Dossier, or DPE, organizes the practical conditions of the work being considered: sources, scope, impacts, missions, dependencies and expected evidence. It relies on an IGR with sufficiently determined meaning or on an explicitly qualified equivalent governed source. It cannot resolve missing meaning.
Its four O1–O4 facets cut across pre-execution and pre-integration checks; they are not four consecutive stages. A READY result indicates eligible preparation at the specific checkpoint; it does not grant authority to act. An incomplete dossier cannot be presented as ready overall. The DPE remains versioned, revisable and revocable.
Upper authority rail · unresolved choices
Human decision · resolve open choices
Some choices require a decision by a competent human source: clarifying open business meaning, resolving a contradiction or setting delegation limits. Agents may gather facts, explain discrepancies and propose options. They cannot turn a proposal into an adopted governed decision.
This responsibility does not mean a person must approve every action. Once the necessary choices have been made and bounded authority has been granted, agents may act within the established limits when the conditions for exercising it are satisfied. The human decision, granted authority and activation remain distinct. Decisions must remain explicit, justifiable and traceable.
Upper authority rail · competent source and bounded scope
Grant bounded authority
Granted authority is a valid, traceable delegation from a competent human source. It defines the permitted actions, their scope, conditions and limits. It may be granted before all preparation has been completed, provided the conditions for exercising it are sufficiently explicit.
This distinction allows agents to act within an already decided space without requesting approval at every transition. It does not allow them to fabricate a missing decision. A ready dossier, a mission or a successful check may contribute to activation conditions; none creates authority. Any propagation must be permitted and can never expand the delegation received.
Upper authority rail · applicable and current conditions
Check activation conditions
Authority can be valid without being immediately usable. Activation conditions define what must hold at the time of action: eligible preparation, current evidence, a compliant scope or other requirements imposed by the responsible source. They make an existing delegation exercisable; they do not create a new one.
If these conditions are settled and met, exercising authority may become possible without another human decision when the source allows it. Any required case-by-case confirmation, separation of duties or personal intervention remains mandatory. Reassessing conditions cannot revive expired or revoked authority. The delegation itself must therefore be distinguished from the facts that permit its exercise.
Upper authority rail · currently active part of the delegation
Act within exercisable authority
Exercisable authority is the part of a delegation whose conditions are all satisfied now for the specific action and target. Permission granted yesterday is insufficient if it has expired, its scope does not cover the action or a required condition no longer holds.
SMBC-GAF© thus links each action to a competent source and current boundaries. The action must remain within the active scope of the mission, DPE and delegation wherever these apply. A READY status or PASS result never replaces this check. Autonomy to act remains bounded and does not imply a transfer of decision-making authority.
Teal loop · agentic realization
Perform work under governance
Agentic realization is work carried out by agents within a space whose meaning is sufficiently determined and that is prepared and authorized. Responsibilities, inputs, outcomes and traces must remain attributable. An agent may perform what is covered by currently exercisable authority without granting itself additional permissions.
Some local discretion exists among materially equivalent ways of carrying out the work. It does not permit silently changing a business rule, contract, responsibility or required assurance. If a material difference still needs a decision, it must be qualified. Completing the work does not mean that integration, publication or acceptance has been authorized.
Teal loop · checks, facts and evidence
Establish facts and evidence
A deterministic check evaluates an assertion for which the inputs, verification rule and expected result are sufficiently specified. It produces facts and evidence for a precise scope. Applicability, technical execution and conformity assessment remain distinct: an unavailable check is not a successful check.
Results contribute to preparation under the applicable obligations without automatically conferring READY status. Even if all performed checks pass, they do not by themselves demonstrate that the entire expected scope was covered. PASS is neither permission to act nor a human judgment. Reasons for blocking or review must remain visible.
Bottom of the teal loop
Reassess, correct and replay
A failed check does not always require a new human decision. A correction followed by a fresh check may take place under existing authority when the failure is genuine, the correction is determined and all conditions for retrying are met together.
The scope, mission, DPE and active authority must cover the correction. Affected impacts and evidence are reassessed, and dependent obligations are replayed. Attempts, risks and stop conditions remain bounded and traceable. A technical error or a need for judgment must not be treated as a simple FAIL. A retry never restores expired or revoked authority.
Panel below the teal loop
Integrate only when conditions are met
Integration is one possible outcome of realization, subject to competent, valid and traceable authority. In particular, it requires a still-eligible semantic source, preparation that is ready before integration, current evidence and an actually compliant scope. Blocking conditions and matters requiring review must be resolved.
Advance authorization may allow agents to assess and then integrate when its defined conditions are met and no additional human act is required. Completed execution or a PASS result is therefore never sufficient by itself. Integrating remains distinct from publishing, deploying, accepting, closing or promoting; authority for one does not grant authority for the others.
Dotted indigo connection
Learn and reopen meaning
Realization, a check or an investigation may reveal a new fact, exception or contradiction. Learning means reflecting those observations in the relevant sources and assessments. Meaning can be reopened even before integration, without waiting for an entire journey to finish.
This feedback prevents a conclusion that has become outdated from being retained. Depending on the change, semantic sufficiency, preparation or affected evidence must be reassessed. The dotted connection in the diagram expresses this possibility without imposing a universal chronology. Learning does not by itself change a rule or governed decision, nor does it automatically expand agents' authority.
Burgundy band · five families of referral
Return to a person for a specific reason
Human referral addresses what is genuinely missing for work to continue. SMBC-GAF© identifies five families: a missing governed decision, an unresolved contradiction, insufficient authority or a mandatory human act, inherently human judgment, or an exception to governance.
The referral identifies the family involved, what is missing and the expected human response. It prevents agents from inventing a resolution or exceeding their delegation. A completed mission, a review-ready state, READY, PASS or FAIL does not by itself justify human approval. Investigation or reassessment may continue under existing authority where it is covered.
