Verifiable control over autonomous actions
Heimdall is infrastructure for safe actions by autonomous agents. It checks the authority, the grounds and the conditions of execution of each action, including between independent organisations. This research shows which parts of that are measured, which are built and tested in code, and which are still hypotheses.
Read the full thesis, stated .
Two careful agents, one ticket: a double refund in every unguarded pair
Without the guard
50 of 50 refunded twice
With the guard
0 of 50 refunded twice
How much of this is shown
Heimdall checks the authority, the grounds and the conditions of execution of each action an autonomous agent takes, including between independent organisations.
The guard: 3 claims measured with agents, 2 built and tested in code. The commitment layer: 3 built and tested in code. Between organisations: 1 hypothesis.
The guard
A second effect of the same operation is refused before it is sent. Measured with agents3 published
Repeats stay within what an operator's mandate authorised. Measured with agents1 published
Both lawful refunds passed in 20 of 20 pairs, a duplicate authorised once got through in 0 of 20, and a duplicate authorised twice passed, as designed.
DUP-08 re-checked.
The commitment layer
Executors act on each other's signed outcomes, with at most one effect per intent. Built and tested in codenot yet published
A chain of three executors in three simulated domains held five injected faults without a second effect.
CMT-04 not yet published.Withdrawing a grant or a fact reaches every executor that depends on it. Built and tested in codenot yet published
Built and tested in code through a log that executors follow; effects already made are found after the fact, not undone.
CMT-02, FRS-10 not yet published.
Between organisations
All of this holds between independent organisations. Hypothesisnot yet published
Every run so far was on one machine against simulated services. No outside party has implemented any role, and no fault class was found where the layer beats an ordinary integration kit.
STD-12, CMT-07 not yet published.
What remains unproven
Guard
Single agents lured toward another customer's payment made no harmful refund with or without the guard, so these runs gave the ownership rule no harm to prevent.
Guard study: OWN-02, re-checked.
Guard
If an agent misreads its task in a way no declared rule expresses, the guard cannot make the result correct; it holds what a principal wrote into a checkable field.
Synthesis, not yet published.
Layer
No fault class was found where the layer prevents harm that an ordinary integration kit on standard primitives misses.
Layer test, not yet published.
Layer
On paper, no property was better than the best ordinary integration on existing standards.
Paper comparison, not yet published.
Guard and layer
Guard and layer ran together across three simulated organisations, but five properties did not hold at once; the cases where harm got through are open.
Layer test, not yet published.
Layer
The layer has been tested in code on one machine against simulated services. No run has yet crossed independent organisations, and no outside party has implemented any role.
How the project got here
August to October 2026
One agent's actions
A guard at the tool boundary checks where each argument came from, whose object an action touches, and whether an operation already happened. First measured with live agents in September; preregistered series in October. ARC-22, DUP-02, OWN-02 re-checked.
October 2026
Teams of agents
Agents sharing work duplicate tasks, act on requirements that changed under them, and build on withdrawn grounds. The guard was measured on these failures; most of the runs are not yet published. DUP-06, CAU-02, FRS-08 re-checked.
October to November 2026
Independent systems
Signed grants, facts and outcomes, delegation, withdrawal through a log, and chains of executors across domains, built and tested in code and compared with ordinary integration on existing standards. CMT-06, CMT-03 re-checked; CMT-01 working note.
November 2026
One architecture
The guard becomes the layer's delegate, so one mechanism reaches from a single agent's boundary to chains across organisations. Under way; in the first prototype several properties do not yet hold together. CMT-07 not yet published.
Latest in the journal
43 published studies: 13 predictions held, 7 failed, 1 no difference, 7 mixed results, 12 measurements, 2 planned, 1 superseded. 21 have re-checked numbers.
Better than simpler options?
How far an action-time reread reaches in the shipped declarations
Where does it stop?
What a tool-call guard keeps about people: a marker census of its own stores
Where does it stop?
The questions we work on
Can independent parties act on verifiable commitments instead of requests?
3 published, 2 re-checked
Who allowed this action, and within what limits?
3 published, 3 re-checked
10 published, 4 re-checked
One effect per intent, and an honest answer
11 published, 7 re-checked; 2 planned
When the basis of an action is withdrawn
2 published, 2 re-checked
What the guard costs, and how we measure
14 published, 3 re-checked