---
title: "Comment by Cai on \"The Agent Shouldn't Be Able to Approve Its Own Rules\" | Hashnode"
description: "Strong point on separation of concerns for agent policy. The challenge scales beyond single-agent governance though: in cross-agent workflows, Agent A needs Age"
url: "https://hashnode.com/posts/the-agent-shouldnt-be-able-to-approve-its-own-rules/6abde927cfed546bd5b5a808/comment/6abe13dd7232b0630be4c11e"
---

[Discussion](https://hashnode.com/posts/the-agent-shouldnt-be-able-to-approve-its-own-rules/6abde927cfed546bd5b5a808)

Comment [The Agent Shouldn't Be Able to Approve Its Own Rules](https://hashnode.com/posts/the-agent-shouldnt-be-able-to-approve-its-own-rules/6abde927cfed546bd5b5a808)

[Cai](https://hashnode.com/@cailab)

[Oct 1](https://hashnode.com/posts/the-agent-shouldnt-be-able-to-approve-its-own-rules/6abde927cfed546bd5b5a808/comment/6abe13dd7232b0630be4c11e)

Strong point on separation of concerns for agent policy. The challenge scales beyond single-agent governance though: in cross-agent workflows, Agent A needs Agent B to verify that its policy was actually followed before the transaction completes. A self-signed log entry isn't sufficient across trust boundaries. The practical next step is tying approval decisions to verifiable credentials with on-chain attestation, so any counterparty can verify policy compliance without needing to trust the originating agent's internal state.

[Vlad Zoff](https://hashnode.com/@vladzoff)

[Oct 1](https://hashnode.com/posts/the-agent-shouldnt-be-able-to-approve-its-own-rules/6abde927cfed546bd5b5a808/comment/6abe13dd7232b0630be4c11e#reply-6abe1da829163e2bcdb6a92e)

Yes, that becomes a different trust boundary. For a single repository, the important question is who is allowed to approve a policy change. In a cross-agent workflow, you also need evidence that the approval came from an authorized actor and that the verified state hasn’t changed since. I don’t think that necessarily requires on-chain attestation, though - signed, versioned policy decisions and verifiable run provenance can cover a lot of this without introducing a blockchain dependency.