Canonical flow
Transaction / trade execution gate
Irreversible action gate for material financial execution.
Abstract pattern
Irreversible action gate
The counter-example that proves PAA is not autonomy-maximalist: material execution stays gated because the failure cost is effectively unbounded.
- Assisted Human-led with automation support.
- HITL Human approves each action.
- HOTL Human samples or monitors.
- Autonomous Automation acts within guardrails.
Task contract
Transaction / trade execution gate
The counter-example that proves PAA is not autonomy-maximalist: material execution stays gated because the failure cost is effectively unbounded.
- Boundary
- Input is the proposed transaction, including instrument, size, price, and context. Output is allow, block, or require-human.
- Evidence log
- Proposed action, gate verdict, human decision when required, and realized outcome such as fill, slippage, P&L, or breach.
- Evaluator
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- Target
- Output and outcome
- Technique
- Position limits, price bounds, whitelists, and kill-switch conditions gate the action. Model signals remain advisory only.
- Oracle
- Hard policy constraints for permissioning and realized outcomes for monitoring.
- Position policy
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- hitl
- blocking — deterministic invariants gate every action; anything exceeding limits or policy conditions requires human approval before execution
- Promotion rule
- Deliberately capped. The gate does not graduate to full autonomy for material actions because irreversible failure is too costly.
- Demotion
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- Rule
- Any breach or near-miss tightens limits immediately, and invariant violations trigger the kill-switch.
- Fallback
- Human approval is required for any material or policy-edge action; the kill-switch halts execution until a human resets it.
Teaching point
What this flow proves
Risk-adjusted failure cost sets the bar, and irreversible actions stay under deterministic gating rather than learned judgment.
Teaching context
Why this flow is governed this way
- Worker context
- Upstream automation proposes the transaction or trade.
- Without PAA
- Model signals become execution signals without a deterministic gate; a single mispriced or oversized action can cause material financial harm before any human can intervene.
- Never full-auto
- Material financial execution — the failure cost is effectively unbounded, so deterministic gating is permanent rather than a transitional state.
This page is linked from the canonical card set on the flows index.