Start with the system
Learn what an AI agent can do, whose interests it affects, and where a failure can occur.
Chapters 1–4 · Definitions, scope, governance, threats
Read the foundations →Standalone enterprise handbook · Edition 2.0
Agentic Responsible AI. From understanding to action.
Govern AI agents with clear permissions, observable outcomes, and safeguards you can test. A complete introduction, operating guide, and practical reference for the people building, buying, overseeing, and auditing them.
Choose your starting point
A reading path for the work ahead.
Read from the beginning or follow the decision you need to make. The glossary, examples, and source explanations are included; no earlier edition is required.
Set boundaries that hold
Define authority, protect data and memory, and give affected people meaningful review and correction.
Chapters 5–8 · Architecture, permissions, data, fairness
Explore the control design →Test the claim against reality
Build evaluations, collect outcome evidence, plan recovery, and adapt the specifications to your workflow.
Chapters 9–18 · Evaluation, operation, applications, specifications
Start the 90-day plan →The complete handbook.
18 chapters, 10 appendices, 14 explanatory figures, and 47 annotated source items. Each chapter opens as a readable page, with its citations and qualifications intact.
Understand and design
- 1Foundations: AI agents and responsible AI
- 2Scope, impact, risk, and autonomy
- 3Enterprise governance and the lifecycle
- 4Threats and failure mechanisms
- 5The operating object and its control architecture
- 6Authority, identity, approvals, and protocol changes
- 7Knowledge, memory, privacy, and durable state
- 8Fairness, customer outcomes, and meaningful human authority
Evaluate, operate, and implement
- 9A decision-grade evaluation program
- 10Monitoring that supports an operational safety claim
- 11Multi-agent operation and the third-party perimeter
- 12Operational telemetry, metrics, and assurance evidence
- 13Incidents, containment, recovery, and retirement
- 14Worked enterprise applications
- 15A 90-day implementation sequence
- 16Regulatory and standards scope
- 17What current research changes
- 18Twelve detailed implementation specifications
Explore the 10 reference appendices
Appendix A. Glossary and acronym reference →Appendix B. Baseline control reference and optional compendium crosswalk →Appendix C. Implementation templates and filled examples →Appendix D. Proposed acceptance-test catalog →Appendix E. Event semantics and metric dictionary →Appendix F. A worked assurance case →Appendix G. Legal scope and supplier worksheets →Appendix H. Research method, validation, and open questions →Appendix I. Annotated source bibliography →Appendix J. Supplementary files, publication, and maintenance →
Take it into your work
Read, adapt, and test.
45 proposed practices, 12 detailed implementation specifications, and 36 proposed acceptance tests connect the guidance to mechanisms, accountable owners, and observable evidence.
The reading edition
The complete book, including diagrams, glossary, implementation specifications, and annotated bibliography.
Download the PDF ↓The editable manuscript
Use the text in your reading and working notes. The diagrams are included in the separate implementation kit.
Download the Markdown ↓The implementation kit
Ten blank JSON templates support the 12 implementation specifications. The kit also includes practice and test registers, source and metric ledgers, SVG diagrams, and clearly marked synthetic examples.
Download the kit ↓How to use the templates →Know what the evidence supports.
The source notes distinguish research preprints, official legal texts, technical documentation, and voluntary frameworks. Benchmark findings retain their study conditions and denominators.
The practices and tests are proposed designs. The examples are synthetic. Neither their inclusion nor a successful download demonstrates effectiveness in your enterprise.
Inspect the annotated sources →A versioned reference. A growing evidence trail.
The handbook’s evidence cutoff remains 2 October 2026. Monthly reference updates collect newer published findings by control area. These supplementary updates do not revise the handbook text.
The July 2026 compendium and its 112 controls remain available. The handbook’s 45 practices use separate identifiers and an optional crosswalk.
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