An agent may speak. It binds only as far as it is mandated.
Autonomous agents now write, negotiate, and transact on behalf of people and institutions. The question of whether they may act has been widely addressed. The question of how far their action carries has not.
Aliaise is a reference layer for that second question. It classifies the authority under which an agent represents a principal, and marks the point at which representation becomes obligation.
To establish a working relationship between two parties who are not the same party.
To act between — carrying the position of one side into the room of the other.
To do so under authority granted, and not exceeded.
The word already contains the problem. To liaise is to stand between a principal and a counterparty — which means every act of liaison raises a question of scope. The French root, lier, means to bind. The vocabulary of representation and the vocabulary of obligation share an origin, and the third sense is the one that machine agency makes urgent.
Access is not representation.
These two questions are routinely collapsed into one, and they govern different risks. A system may be fully authorised to reach data and still hold no authority to speak. A system may be granted narrow access and still bind its principal to a contract. Permission and mandate are separate instruments, and they fail separately.
Governs what an agent is permitted to read, retrieve, and process. Failure here is a breach: information moves that should not have moved.
Addressed by permission frameworks, access posture declarations, and consent regimes.
Governs what an agent's output does to the principal's position. Failure here is an obligation: a commitment exists that the principal never made.
Addressed here.
Six levels. One threshold.
Authority is not binary. It extends. The scale below describes how far a principal's position travels when an agent acts — and marks the single point where the agent stops carrying a message and starts creating an obligation.
What this layer does not do.
A classification layer earns its authority by refusing work that belongs elsewhere. Aliaise describes the shape of a mandate. It does not issue one, verify one, or adjudicate a dispute over one.
- NotA capability rating. The scale measures granted authority, not model performance. A weak agent may hold L5. A strong one may hold L0.
- NotA compliance certificate. Declaring a level is a statement of intent by the principal, not an audited finding.
- NotA legal determination. Whether a given commitment is enforceable is decided by a jurisdiction, not by a scale.
- NotA product. There is nothing here to install. The layer is a vocabulary that contracts, logs, and disclosures can reference.
Aliaise is held and developed as a governed reference asset. Correspondence from institutions working on agentic delegation is read. Nothing is solicited.