Action contract

What is an AI action contract?

Before a sensitive action runs, an AI action contract defines the target system, credential, policy, required approval, and result to record.

Last updated: August 3, 2026

See boundary map

This operational record defines who or what can act, which credential is used, what target can change, which policy applies, what confirmation is required, and what evidence must remain.

Define the rule before the action runs

An action contract turns a sensitive delegated action into something the team can review before it runs and verify afterward.

Tool access starts the path. The contract then records the allowed action, credential, target, policy, confirmation, evidence, and result.

Contract fields

Actor and owner

The human requester, accountable owner, agent, workflow, or automation that initiated the action.

Authority

The credential, service account, token, CI secret, cloud role, or inherited identity used to act.

Action and target

The exact operation and system: deploy service, publish package, update workflow, call tool, run migration, or change infra.

Policy and review

The allow, review, approve, or block decision, plus the reason and reviewer when the action needs human confirmation.

Evidence

The PR, workflow run, tool log, credential reference, approval record, validation result, and final outcome.

Receipt

The compact record that proves what happened later, without asking reviewers to reconstruct the path from scattered logs.

Concrete example

John -> AI coding agent -> PR -> release workflow -> NPM_TOKEN -> package publish -> receipt

John uses an AI coding agent to update a release workflow. Jack reviews the PR. The action contract asks the missing question before the workflow can publish: is this package-publish action allowed under the release token, who approved it, and which receipt will prove the result?

Field Example
Action Publish package after release workflow runs.
Authority NPM_TOKEN available to GitHub Actions release job.
Policy Approve package publish before credentialed release action.
Receipt PR, approver, workflow run, token scope reference, package version, and publish outcome.

Copyable action contract

Map one action path before turning it into a contract.

Clyra maps the actor, authority, action, target, policy, review, evidence, and receipt for one selected workflow.

Map one workflow