External Operation-Accountability Profiles¶

This note describes a documentation-only interoperability pattern for referencing Agent Governance Toolkit runtime evidence from an external operation-accountability profile.

It is not an AGT runtime feature, plugin, evidence schema, or verifier replacement.

Purpose¶

AGT provides runtime governance for agent actions, including policy enforcement, identity, sandboxing, audit material, and runtime evidence verification.

Some downstream environments may need to reference runtime evidence from an external accountability object. For example, evidence may be exchanged across organizations, attached to a data-space transaction, or included in a larger evidence package.

In that setting, AGT runtime evidence can be treated as upstream evidence material for a downstream accountability statement.

Scope¶

This pattern is documentation-only.

AGT remains responsible for runtime governance. AGT evidence verification remains available through AGT mechanisms. The external profile does not change AGT runtime behavior.

AGT evidence, receipts, audit records, or decision records are referenced as evidence artifacts.

Non-goals¶

• changes to AGT runtime governance
• changes to AGT policy enforcement
• changes to AGT identity mechanisms
• changes to AGT sandboxing
• replacement of agt verify --evidence
• a required dependency on an external validator
• an official AGT evidence schema change
• a new AGT runtime contract

Relationship to AGT Evidence Verification¶

AGT evidence verification and external operation-accountability validation answer different questions.

AGT evidence verification checks AGT governance evidence within the AGT runtime-governance model.

An external operation-accountability profile checks whether a downstream accountability statement is structurally complete and independently reviewable. Such a statement may reference AGT runtime evidence as supporting material, but it does not replace AGT evidence verification.

Security and Responsibility Boundaries¶

External operation-accountability profiles are not AGT runtime features and are not AGT evidence-verification mechanisms.

Before AGT runtime evidence is referenced from an external accountability statement, users should verify the authenticity and integrity of that evidence using the appropriate AGT verification mechanisms, where applicable. External profile validation should not be used as a substitute for AGT evidence verification.

External mapping adapters, validators, storage systems, and downstream registries are outside the AGT runtime trust boundary. Users are responsible for securing those components, including their signing keys, dependency chain, transport path, and validation environment.

Third-party reference implementations should be treated as examples only. Users should audit any external implementation and its dependencies before using it in production or compliance-sensitive environments.

For AGT-specific receipt and evidence-verification concepts, see Tutorial 33 — Offline-Verifiable Decision Receipts.

Mapping Concept¶

Example Pipeline¶

AGT runtime evidence
-> external mapping adapter
-> operation-accountability statement
-> independent profile validation
-> validation report

This pipeline is intended for interoperability and downstream accountability. It is not part of the AGT runtime path.

Example Reference Implementation¶

• Related issue: https://github.com/microsoft/agent-governance-toolkit/issues/1314

No reference implementation is currently available. Community contributions welcome.

Review Note¶

This note is intended as an interoperability discussion starter. It does not require AGT maintainers to adopt the external profile, and it does not create a compatibility commitment.