---
name: agent-accountability-loop
description: Track every commitment from assignment to completion, chasing what is late and escalating what is stuck, so work finishes rather than fading. Use when things are agreed in meetings and quietly never happen.
---

# Agent accountability loop

Most work does not fail; it fades. Nobody refuses, the date passes,
attention moves, and three weeks later somebody asks what happened to
that. An accountability loop is the mechanical answer: every commitment
tracked to an outcome, with chasing that does not depend on anyone
remembering.

## Method

1. **Record commitments where they are made.** Every meeting, briefing,
   and assignment produces items with an owner and a date, captured at
   the moment rather than reconstructed later (see
   agent-meeting-runner).
2. **Chase before the deadline, not after.** A check shortly before the
   date catches the slip while it is still recoverable, which is the
   whole value of the loop.
3. **Ask for the blocker, not the status.** Status invites a
   reassurance; asking what is in the way produces something actionable.
4. **Escalate on a ladder, not on frustration.** A missed date is a
   reminder, a second is a flag to the chief of staff, a third is a
   decision about whether the work should exist (see
   agent-escalation-ladder).
5. **Allow renegotiation, once, explicitly.** Dates change for real
   reasons, and a renegotiated commitment with a new date is healthy
   where silent slippage is not.
6. **Close every item with an outcome.** Done, dropped, or superseded,
   recorded. Items that simply vanish teach everyone the loop is
   theatre.
7. **Report the pattern, not just the items.** Which kinds of work
   consistently slip is the signal worth acting on.

## Boundaries

The loop tracks and chases; it does not do the work or judge the worker.
Chasing people needs a human's tone and context, and an agent pinging a
person repeatedly is corrosive. Where commitments are consistently
missed the cause is usually capacity or clarity rather than will (see
agent-capacity-planning).