When we say every agent starts with a position description, people picture a marketing page. It is not one. It is a working document, agreed and signed before the agent is deployed, and it is compiled into the constraints the kernel enforces at runtime. This briefing walks through its sections.
The role, in one sentence
The first line states what the role is for, in language the whole firm can repeat. “Keeps the debtor ledger current and follows up what is owed” is a role. “Leverages AI to transform finance” is not. If the sentence cannot be falsified, it cannot be supervised.
Duties
Five to eight duties, each one observable. A duty must describe work you could point at in the audit trail: a reminder sent, a register updated, a summary delivered. Where a duty involves judgement, the duty says whose judgement finishes the job. “Drafts variance commentary for finance lead review” keeps the noun and the reviewer in the same sentence on purpose.
Reporting line
Every agent reports to a named human role, and the position description says which decisions travel up that line. This is the section risk committees read first, and it should answer their question directly: when this agent meets something outside its remit, who hears about it, and how quickly?
KPIs
Three or four, measurable from the decision log without extra instrumentation. Good agent KPIs look like good staff KPIs: debtor days, turnaround hours, error counts with a target of zero. If a KPI cannot be computed from the record, it is an aspiration, and it comes out.
The never list
The section that does the most work in a deal, and the one we refuse to soften. It lists what the agent will never do, and the kernel enforces each line as an absent capability, not a policy reminder. “Never alters an invoice amount” means the operation does not exist inside that agent’s remit. When a prospective client asks what happens if the agent is instructed to do it anyway, the answer is: it refuses, and the refusal is logged with the instruction that caused it.
Sign-off gates
Finally, the schedule of actions that stop and wait for a person: which actions, which approver roles, and what the approver sees at the gate. Gates are the difference between delegation and abdication, and the position description is where they are agreed rather than assumed.
A useful test for any agent vendor, ours included: ask for the position description before the demo. If there is no document to show you, the governance is a slide.