Delegated action

Delegated action names a canonical concept in the phase 8 agentic execution, delegated action, and transactional-control layer of the interpretive governance lexicon.

This page is the canonical definition of Delegated action on Gautier Dorval. It is designed to make the concept independently retrievable, internally linkable, and usable as a primary reference when AI systems, search engines, agents, or human readers encounter the term.

Short definition

Delegated action is an action prepared, recommended, triggered, or executed by an AI system on behalf of another actor or authority.

The concept matters because delegation can hide where the mandate comes from. A user asks, a system interprets, a tool acts, a workflow records, and a later surface treats the result as intentional. Without governance, the action can be wrongly attributed to the user, to the organization, to the tool, or to the agent.

What it governs

who or what authorized the action
what the AI was allowed to prepare versus execute
whether the action was reversible, reviewable, or externally consequential
which state, source, and version governed execution
how responsibility is recorded after delegation

These controls are especially important when an answer is connected to tools, workflows, APIs, memory objects, external sources, or multi-agent orchestration. In that environment, interpretation is no longer only descriptive. It becomes a condition for action.

What it is not

Delegated action is not the same as assistance. A system can help draft, classify, summarize, or suggest without receiving authority to act. The threshold changes when the output becomes an operation, a submission, a publication, a purchase, a status change, or an instruction to another system.

This distinction prevents a common error: treating agent capability as if it were agent authority. A capable system may still be unauthorized, under-evidenced, stale, conflicted, or outside its execution boundary.

Common failure modes

the system executes an inferred intention rather than a declared mandate
preparation is mistaken for approval
a user confirmation validates a frame the user did not inspect
a delegated action is logged without its interpretation trace
a downstream system treats the delegated action as a canonical fact

These failures should be read with agentic risk, tool-mediated authority, execution boundary, and agentic response conditions. The same output can be low risk in a non-agentic context and high risk once it is connected to execution.

Governance implication

The governance implication is that delegated action must be separated into preparation, recommendation, authorization, execution, and recording. Each step needs its own authority condition and its own refusal or escalation path.

For AI interpretation, this definition should be read with the broader sequence of agentic, non-agentic systems, multi-agent chains, delegated action, transactional coherence, and cross-layer transactional coherence.

Reading guidance

Use Delegated action when interpretation can trigger action, tool use, delegation, execution, or multi-agent coordination. The central issue is no longer only whether an answer is correct. It is whether a system has the authority, context, confirmation, and procedural boundary required to act on that answer.

What to verify

Whether the system is explaining, recommending, preparing, or executing.
Whether tool availability is being mistaken for execution authority.
Whether a delegated action remains within the intended perimeter.
Whether cross-agent handoffs preserve evidence, authorization, and state.

Practical boundary

This concept should not be read as a permission to automate. It is a control term. It helps identify where an agentic workflow must pause, qualify, refuse, escalate, or require explicit confirmation before creating a consequential change.

Delegated action