The decomposition has two parts. A short sequence of steps that repeats, and an explicit inventory of what the agent is permitted to reach. The second part constitutes the design: the inventory determines capability, determines exposure, and determines how much governance the deployment actually requires.
Part one · the loop
That sequence is the whole of an agent loop. Claude Code and Codex both implement one, and Damco writes narrower loops that perform a single job. The steps are identical across all three, and the inventory below is what distinguishes them.
Part two · what you hand it
An agent is therefore not a capable system requiring containment. An agent is a constrained system whose reach is enumerated, and the defensible answer to a review board asking what the agent can perform is the inventory itself.
The decomposition
Six blocks constitute an agent deployment. Damco constructs four of them, nominates the fifth with the client, and instruments the sixth from first release. Each block forces one architectural decision, and the right-hand column states which.
01
The presentation layer through which an operator receives prepared work and issues approval.
A purpose-built console for the role, or an integration into the collaboration platform the team already operates.
Decision required
Whether the surface is constructed or adopted. Reversible at low cost, and independent of the remaining five blocks.
02
The controlled vocabulary binding business terms to system entities, states and authority thresholds.
The slice the job in scope requires. Not an enterprise-wide model, and not a prerequisite programme.
Decision required
Which entities the job touches, and which system holds the authoritative definition where two disagree.
03
The policy enforcement and audit boundary between every agent and every system of record.
One integration layer serving all agents: authorization decision, audit record, and, for read-only jobs, the data itself.
Decision required
Whether an existing integration layer is reused or a governed layer is constructed. Expanded in the section below.
04
The execution environment hosting the control loop.
Deployment to the environment nominated during Strategize: a managed service, an ephemeral instance, or the operator's own workstation.
Decision required
Tenancy and data residency. Determined by data classification and by existing platform commitments, not by preference.
05
Retained state across executions, including every amendment a reviewer applied to prepared work.
A store bound to the job specification, so reviewer intervention becomes measurable signal rather than unrecorded rework.
Decision required
Retention period, and which fields within retained state constitute personal data under the applicable regime.
06
Continuous measurement of correction rate, escalation rate, and the business metric the job is accountable to.
Instrumented from first release and reported monthly, with the baseline captured before deployment.
Decision required
The correction-rate threshold at which autonomy is extended, and the duration over which that threshold must hold.
Blocks 01 and 04 are delivery decisions and remain reversible. Blocks 02, 03 and 06 are governance decisions, and altering any of the three after deployment is materially more expensive than settling it during Strategize.
Block 03, expanded
The tool inventory describes what the agent may request. The gateway determines what the agent actually receives. Damco constructs one gateway across your software, and every agent action traverses it.
Regulated industries
Every call traverses software Damco authored, so auditability is a structural property rather than an operational commitment. This is the configuration that withstands an examiner reconstructing how a specific decision was reached.
Where the capability exists
Where your software already runs a suitable layer, Damco integrates with it. Damco will not rebuild a functioning integration for architectural symmetry, and will state plainly where the client's component is the stronger one.
Read-only jobs
Damco maintains a current copy of the material the job requires, and the agent queries that copy. The system of record carries no additional load and presents no additional failure surface.
Introducing a fifth agent changes nothing on the systems-of-record side. That property is the entire justification for a single gateway: the marginal cost of the next agent is the inventory authored for it, rather than a further integration into a system the organisation is reluctant to modify.
The conditions that cannot move
Every enterprise holds a small number of conditions that cannot be altered for a project. Those conditions are the reason a reference architecture fails on contact with software a business actually runs. Damco establishes them at the opening of Strategize rather than pricing around them at the close, and each one resolves to a specific decision in the block table above.
None of the five requires an exception to the reference model. Each resolves to a decision the block table already anticipates, which is the property that distinguishes a reference architecture from a diagram.
One drawing, four times
Each pattern is the four slots established above — control loop, declared reach, gateway, systems of record — with different components provisioned. Read the first and the remaining three follow, because the slot that varies materially is the second, and the second is the inventory the client authors.
Executes one queue an operator currently owns.
The default where the job resides inside your software and an operator performs it today. Reach is enumerated, and every action produces an audit record.
Claims intake · prior authorisation · RFQ response
Answers from a maintained copy, and never contacts the original.
This is the lowest-exposure way to begin. Where the job requires read access only, the system of record is absent from the execution path, carries no additional load, and presents no additional failure surface.
Chart preparation · lane quoting · month-end close preparation
Operates outside the perimeter, so nothing inside it is opened.
No gateway is provisioned because no internal resource is in scope. The exposure question largely resolves itself, which is why this pattern is frequently the first agent a conservative enterprise authorises.
Market assessment · due diligence · supplier research
Modifies software and submits the change for review.
A general-purpose host means an instance Damco provisions for the job and destroys afterwards. Never a client machine, and never one holding a route to production. This is the pattern the software factory operates.
The software factory · migrations · test coverage
provisionedgateway — every action traverses itabsent — not blocked, not present
None of the four is exotic and none constitutes a separate product. Changing pattern means changing the inventory, which is why the marginal cost of an additional agent is the inventory authored for it.
The generating axes
Declared reach and hosting location are independent decisions. Reach determines capability and exposure, and is settled under governance. Hosting is a delivery decision settled under data classification. Every populated cell is a configuration Damco builds; every empty cell is one Damco does not.
Provisioning a general-purpose host means provisioning an instance Damco creates for the job and destroys on completion, never a client machine. That is the single point at which the two axes constrain one another.
Invariant across all four
Two properties are invariant across all four patterns and across every hosting decision, which is what qualifies reach and hosting as delivery decisions rather than governance ones.
For the operator
For the work
Governance
Damco does not propose removing a reviewer at go-live. The first release prepares work for approval, and autonomy is extended subsequently against a threshold recorded during Strategize.
Both states are the same build. Transition between them is a configuration change at the gateway rather than a second engagement, which is why Damco requires the boundary to be agreed during Strategize rather than renegotiated after a year in service.
The promotion rule is recorded at scoping: autonomy is extended when the correction rate remains below an agreed figure across an agreed number of consecutive weeks.
Describe the job, and Damco will identify the pattern, the blocks in scope, and the systems the deployment would need to reach.
Where the assessment concludes that no agent is warranted, Damco reports that conclusion.