The question to explore

Give your helper a boundary

What may an agent do, and when must it stop?

About 10 minutes / Suggested pace / No account needed

  • Agent
  • Harness
  • Permission
  • Budget
Try the experiment

What this activity helps you do

Try permission off, then permission on with a small budget. Permission controls whether an action is allowed. Budget controls how many actions may be attempted. Increasing one does not change the other.

Local teaching illustration / No AI model call

  1. Choose whether the helper may use its tool, then set its action budget.
  2. Press Try one action and read its decision and counter. Each press attempts one simulated action.
  3. With permission on, press Try one action until the budget is exhausted. Turn permission off and try again. Use Reset counter to start the count over.
Permission off. No simulated action has been taken.

Change a control to explore the example when JavaScript is enabled.

The idea

An AI agent can use a model to choose actions and read the results. It also needs software around it to supply tools, information, permissions and limits. That software is its harness.

This helper follows a script so you can inspect the rules without model calls. Each press tries one action. It must stop when permission is denied or the budget is used up. This browser example is not a security sandbox for other software.

Take this with you

What changed?

A useful helper needs a clear account of its authority, resources and stopping conditions.

Try explaining it.

Does giving a helper a larger budget give it permission to use a forbidden tool?

Open a possible explanation

No. Budget and permission answer different questions. More allowed work does not grant new authority, and a blocked action should be reported rather than quietly bypassed.

Choose what to try next

Keep exploring, or stay here and try another variation.

By Jonathan Simone, with AI assistance. First edition, October 2026. Activities are fictional teaching examples, not measured AI performance. Help us improve this lesson.

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