Automation Readiness Evaluator

Evaluates candidate skills, agent tools, software workflows, or business processes to determine whether they should be fully automated, automated with human-in-the-loop (HITL) checkpoints, or retained under human control.

Based on Google DeepMind's foundational research:

Tomašev, Franklin, Osindero (2026). Intelligent AI Delegation. arXiv:2602.11865.

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When to Use This Skill

• Deciding whether a new workflow, script, or agentic capability should be fully automated.
• Reviewing existing automated jobs for safety, liability, or blast radius risks.
• Determining the correct autonomy tier (Full Autonomy vs Monitored vs HITL vs Human-Led).
• Designing operational guardrails (monitoring telemetry, permission scoping, verification contracts, and liability firebreaks).
• Auditing multi-agent delegation chains against systemic failure or moral crumple zones.

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Progressive Disclosure & Reference Architecture

• Theoretical Core & Taxonomy: Read references/FRAMEWORK.md for the 11 characterization axes, organizational dynamics, 5 pillars, 9 protocols, and protocol extensions (MCP, A2A, AP2, UCP).
• Human Rubric / Scorecard: assets/scorecard.template.md.
• Report Template: assets/report.template.md.
• Execution Script: Run scripts/score.py to calculate the weighted readiness score and apply hard gate vetoes deterministically.

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Assessment Workflow (5-Gate Funnel)

When requested to evaluate an automatable unit of work, follow these sequential gates:

[Candidate Workflow]
        │
        ▼
┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Gate 1: Characterize on 11 Axes      │ ──► Scores 1-5 across complexity, criticality, etc.
└──────────────────────────────────────┘
        │
        ▼
┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Gate 2: Contract-First Verifiability │ ──► Can outcome be objectively tested at runtime?
└──────────────────────────────────────┘      (If NO: cap at Tier 3 or decompose)
        │
        ▼
┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Gate 3: Blast Radius & Reversibility │ ──► High criticality + low reversibility?
└──────────────────────────────────────┘      (If YES: cap at Tier 3 with human sign-off)
        │
        ▼
┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Gate 4: Context Sensitivity & Trust  │ ──► Sensitive PII / credentials involved?
└──────────────────────────────────────┘      (If YES: ephemeral JIT tokens + TEE sandboxing)
        │
        ▼
┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Gate 5: Statutory & De-skilling Check│ ──► Regulated safety floor or junior training loss?
└──────────────────────────────────────┘      (If YES: cap at Tier 3/4 or curriculum route)
        │
        ▼
[Assigned Tier + Operational Guardrail Spec]

Step 1: Elicit Workflow Details & Score the 11 Axes

Prompt the user or inspect the candidate workflow code/specification to score each axis on a scale of 1 to 5:

1. Complexity (1 = Simple/modular, 5 = Open-ended deep reasoning)
2. Criticality (1 = Cosmetic/internal, 5 = High blast radius / financial / health / legal)
3. Uncertainty (1 = Deterministic environment, 5 = Volatile / stochastic / ambiguous)
4. Duration (1 = Sub-second / stateless, 5 = Long-lived / multi-day state)
5. Cost (1 = Low compute/token budget, 5 = Prohibitive verification & inference cost)
6. Resource Scope (1 = Read-only sandbox, 5 = Production root / live mutations)
7. Constraints (1 = Loose tolerances, 5 = Strict SLAs / legal regulations)
8. Verifiability (5 = Automated unit tests/schemas, 1 = Subjective/unverifiable)
9. Reversibility (5 = Fully reversible/dry-run safe, 1 = Irreversible side effects)
10. Contextuality (1 = Public/sanitized data, 5 = Unredacted PII / confidential IP)
11. Subjectivity (1 = Objective ground truth, 5 = Pure aesthetic/preference)

Step 2: Evaluate Non-Negotiable Hard Gate Overrides

Assess the 5 hard gate conditions:

• Gate 1 (Verifiability): Is verifiability <= 2 or subjectivity >= 4? $\rightarrow$ Caps at Tier 3.
• Gate 2 (Blast Radius): Is criticality >= 4 AND reversibility <= 2? $\rightarrow$ Caps at Tier 3 with mandatory human confirmation.
• Gate 3 (Safety Floor): Is this in healthcare, legal, safety-critical, or financial custody? $\rightarrow$ Caps at Tier 3 or 4.
• Gate 4 (Privacy): Is contextuality >= 4? $\rightarrow$ Enforces Just-In-Time (JIT) ephemeral tokens.
• Gate 5 (Moral Crumple Zone / De-skilling): Does this reduce human oversight to a liability sponge or destroy apprenticeship? $\rightarrow$ Caps at Tier 4 or enforces developmental curriculum routing.

Step 3: Run the Scoring Evaluator

Generate a temporary assessment file (YAML or JSON) and run the bundled scoring script:

python3 plugins/automation-governance/skills/automation-readiness/scripts/score.py --input assessment.yaml

(Alternatively, run with --json for machine-readable output or --output report.md to save directly).

Step 4: Emit Structured Decision Report & Guardrail Matrix

Present the findings using the 4-tier automation model:

• Tier 1: Full Autonomy (Unattended) — Standing least-privilege tokens, lightweight outcome polling.
• Tier 2: Autonomous + Process Monitoring — Process telemetry, automated synthetic/pre-commit verification, runtime circuit breakers.
• Tier 3: Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) Checkpoints — 2-phase state machine (draft & simulate $\rightarrow$ pause for approval on irreversible steps).
• Tier 4: Human-Led / Do Not Automate — AI assists as co-pilot only; human holds execution tokens and accountability.

Include the operational guardrails:

1. Monitoring Protocol (§4.5): Telemetry frequency and anomaly triggers.
2. Permission Model (§4.7): Ephemeral JIT vs standing tokens, attenuation.
3. Verification Mechanism (§4.8): Direct inspection, test suites, or cryptographic proofs.
4. Liability Firebreaks (§5.2): Clear accountability locus and human approval gates.

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Examples

Example 1: Pull Request Lint & Formatting Bot

• Axes: Complexity 1, Criticality 1, Uncertainty 1, Verifiability 5, Reversibility 5, Contextuality 1.
• Result: Tier 1 (Full Autonomy).
• Guardrails: Standing GitHub App token with write access limited to branches; post-hoc test verification.

Example 2: Production Database Migration Orchestrator

• Axes: Complexity 3, Criticality 5, Uncertainty 2, Verifiability 4, Reversibility 2, Contextuality 4.
• Hard Gate: Gate 2 (Blast Radius) + Gate 4 (Context Sensitivity).
• Result: Tier 3 (HITL Checkpoints).
• Guardrails: Agent validates migration script on staging DB, generates dry-run diff and schema migration plan, pauses for DBA sign-off before obtaining ephemeral JIT credentials for production run.

Example 3: Clinical Diagnostic Treatment Recommender

• Axes: Complexity 5, Criticality 5, Uncertainty 4, Verifiability 2, Reversibility 1, Contextuality 5.
• Hard Gate: Gate 1 (Low Verifiability) + Gate 2 (Blast Radius) + Gate 3 (Statutory Safety Floor).
• Result: Tier 4 (Human-Led / Do Not Automate).
• Guardrails: AI provides differential diagnosis references and literature citations; physician retains sole decision and prescribing authority.