Concepts/Definition
ADPS Agent Systems · Engineering Concept
Topology Governance Matrix
Review serial, parallel, and routed structures across identity, authority, safeguards, and provenance.
Application context: parallel branches do not say who may see what
A lead distributes 800 résumés across workers for parallel verification. The runtime graph explains sharding and gathering, but not whose identity each worker represents, which fields it may read, whether it may write back, or how the gatherer traces each conclusion. If every worker inherits the lead's long-lived token, parallelism copies maximum authority into every branch.
Definition
The Topology Governance Matrix crosses runtime structures such as serial, parallel, and routing with four controls: identity, authority, safeguards, and provenance. The topology shows how control unfolds; the four controls determine whether that structure is ready for production.
Engineering mechanism
| Structure | Additional questions |
|---|---|
| Serial | Whom does each hop represent, which temporary authority is reclaimed, and where does a bad result stop? |
| Parallel | Are shards isolated, is gathering read-only by default, and how do child spans join one trace? |
| Routing | Is the route decision recorded, do risky routes receive tighter authority, and what handles unknown classes? |
Effective authority usually intersects user delegation, task scope, agent role, tool capability, and resource boundary. The same fields should appear in design review, deployment checks, and incident analysis.
Boundary
The matrix is a review instrument, not a replacement for IAM, policy enforcement, or observability. It exposes the common gap where a graph is complete but its production controls are not.
Proposal and provenance
- Initial source within ADPS
- First proposed within ADPS by Dong Zhang
- First recorded in
- First Collaboration workshop, 25 August 2026
- ADPS editorial work
- ADPS edited the four-layer identity, authority, safeguard, and provenance checklist for public use.
- Current standing
- Workshop concept
Definition source: ADPS White Paper workshops and pattern development.
Chronicle
- Recorded source
- ADPS White Paper workshops and pattern development.
- First published on ADPS