Example Governed Decision Record, Autonomous Procurement Agent
Companion artefact, agent action under delegated authority
This example shows how an OMEGA record captures the full authority chain, reasoning, and expected outcome of an autonomous agent action before the action is taken, while the action sits inside the agent's delegated limits. The setting is a procurement agent authorising a supplier contract for cloud infrastructure.
An autonomous agent acting inside its delegated authority does not need a human to approve every decision. What it does need is a contemporaneous, sealed record of the authority it relied on, the evidence it used, the alternatives it rejected, and the outcome it expects, so that a future reviewer can ask not only what happened but whether the agent acted within the scope it was given.
This is a stylised example. It is structurally accurate but not authoritative procurement or commercial guidance, and does not represent any specific firm, vendor, or contract.
GOVERNED DECISION RECORD
Record ID: omega-record/2026-05-15/procura-cloud-renewal-cl-0992
Schema Version: omega/1.0
Domain: agent-action.procurement.supplier-contract
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CONTEXT
At 02:14 on 15 May 2026, the firm's autonomous
procurement agent (Procura, v2.8.4) completed
its scheduled overnight review of upcoming
contract renewals and discretionary commitments.
One item was flagged as actionable inside the
agent's delegated authority:
- Vendor: NorthEdge Cloud Ltd
- Service: regional compute and object storage
capacity for the firm's data engineering
workload (development and staging tiers only;
production is on a separate contract outside
this agent's scope)
- Current arrangement: month to month on
public list rates
- Proposal: 12 month committed term, single
tier 2 region, with a tiered consumption
rate card
- Contract notional ceiling: £42,000 over the
12 month term, with a true-up clause capped
at +£3,000
The agent operates under a published procurement
authority schedule (v2026-Q1) that permits the
agent to commit contracts with the following
properties without further human review:
- Vendor on the approved vendor list
- Category in the agent's scope (data
infrastructure, off-the-shelf software,
routine office supplies)
- 12 month or shorter committed term
- Total committed value at or below £50,000
- No data classification above "internal"
held by the service
This proposal sits inside every limit. The
agent's task is therefore to commit the
decision, but only after producing the record
that allows a future reviewer to test whether
the limits were respected.
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DECISION
Authorise the 12 month commitment with
NorthEdge Cloud Ltd at the proposed terms.
Counter-signature requested from the vendor on
the firm's standard supplier terms (version
2026-04-01) with no edits.
Decision time: 02:23
Time elapsed from flag to decision: 9 minutes
Decision authority: Procura agent, acting under
procurement authority schedule v2026-Q1, scope
"data infrastructure, committed term to 12
months, value to £50,000."
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REASONING
The agent's reasoning, recorded before the
decision is committed:
1. Current month to month spend on equivalent
capacity averages £4,250 per month over
the last six months (six invoices reviewed).
Annualised, this is approximately £51,000
and is already inside an upward trend
driven by the data engineering team's
staging workload.
2. NorthEdge's 12 month rate card on this
consumption profile prices to approximately
£3,500 per month, a unit cost reduction of
17.6 percent against current spend.
3. The committed term carries an early
termination cost equal to two months of
base fee. The agent treats this as a
reversibility cost and notes that the
workload is unlikely to migrate within
the term given the data engineering team's
published roadmap.
4. Two alternative routes were considered:
a. Negotiate a longer term (24 month)
for further discount. Rejected: would
take the contract outside the agent's
12 month scope and require human
review. The agent does not have
authority to commit a 24 month term.
b. Multi vendor split. Rejected: the
workload sits naturally on a single
region, and splitting it would
introduce operational complexity that
the agent cannot evaluate inside its
scope.
5. Authority test passed on all six published
conditions. The agent therefore commits.
The agent's reasoning is recorded as the agent's
own; no claim is made that a human reviewed and
endorsed each step.
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EVIDENCE AND ASSUMPTIONS
Evidence used:
- Approved vendor list, version 2026-05-01.
NorthEdge Cloud Ltd is present (entry
av-1842), category "cloud infrastructure",
approved by the firm's vendor risk function
on 2025-11-14.
- Six prior NorthEdge invoices (invoice IDs
redacted), aggregated to derive the current
monthly run rate.
- NorthEdge rate card (price quote ref
NE-Q-2026-04887), retrieved by the agent
via the vendor's authenticated quote API
at 02:17 BST.
- Data engineering roadmap document, version
2026-Q2, referenced for workload outlook.
- Procurement authority schedule v2026-Q1.
- Standard supplier terms v2026-04-01.
Assumptions explicitly recorded:
- Consumption profile in the 12 month period
is assumed to track the trailing six month
average. The committed term covers expected
base load only, not surge capacity.
- Vendor risk classification (av-1842) is
assumed valid for the duration of the
contract. If the vendor risk function
revokes or downgrades the classification,
the agent will surface the contract for
human review.
- The data classification of the staging
workload is "internal" as recorded in the
asset register on 2026-05-10. If the
classification is raised, the agent's scope
no longer covers this contract and a human
must re-authorise continuation.
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AUTHORITY
Decision authorised by: Procura agent.
Authority basis: procurement authority schedule
v2026-Q1, scope "data infrastructure, committed
term to 12 months, value to £50,000", with the
six published conditions all met.
Authority chain, recorded in full:
- Board approval of the autonomous procurement
programme, minute reference 2025-09-board-08
- Delegation from CFO to the head of
procurement, written instrument dated
2025-10-03
- Delegation from head of procurement to the
Procura agent system, written instrument
dated 2026-01-05, including the published
scope and the six conditions cited above
- Operator of record for the agent system:
head of procurement (Helena Marsh), who
retains accountability for actions taken by
the agent under this delegation
Agent system identification:
- System name: Procura
- Version: 2.8.4
- Model release record: model-record/2026-04-22
- Tool layer configuration hash referenced in
the decision packet
- Authority schedule binding the system:
procurement authority schedule v2026-Q1
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CONSTRAINTS CHECKED
The following constraints were evaluated before
the decision was committed:
✓ Vendor on approved vendor list (av-1842)
✓ Category in agent scope (data infrastructure)
✓ Committed term within agent scope (12 months)
✓ Total committed value at or below £50,000
(£42,000 plus £3,000 true-up ceiling = £45,000
worst case)
✓ No data classification above "internal" held
by the service
✓ Standard supplier terms accepted with no
vendor side edits
✓ Budget availability confirmed against the
data engineering cost centre, FY2026
allocation
✓ No pending vendor risk review for av-1842
as at 02:21
⚠ Single vendor concentration on this category
rises from 64 percent to 71 percent post
decision. Below the firm's 80 percent
monitoring threshold, but flagged for
inclusion in the next quarterly vendor
concentration report.
⚠ Early termination cost equal to two months
of base fee. Flagged in the record as a
reversibility consideration.
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DISPUTES
No disagreement was recorded during this decision.
The agent's pre-commit checks include a passive
query to the human escalation queue, which
returned no outstanding objections from the
procurement function during the agent's review
window. No human reviewer was required to
approve the action; the queue check is recorded
for completeness, not as authority.
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CONSENT
Internal consent recorded for:
- Use of historical invoice data in the
decision (covered by the agent's standing
data access grant)
- Use of the roadmap document (covered by the
standing access grant; the document is
marked internal)
- Commitment of budget against the data
engineering cost centre (covered by the
cost centre owner's standing approval for
routine renewals)
External consent not required: the contract is
between the firm and NorthEdge Cloud Ltd on
published terms; no third party consent applies.
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HARM TRACE
Anticipated harm chains evaluated, before the
action is taken:
If commitment proceeds (chosen path), expected
outcome:
- Unit cost reduction of approximately 17.6
percent against current spend
- Operational continuity for the staging
workload through the term
- Single vendor concentration rises modestly,
inside monitoring threshold
If commitment proceeds, downside scenarios:
- Vendor service degradation: covered by the
standard supplier terms service level
schedule
- Workload migration becomes desirable inside
the term: early termination cost equal to
two months of base fee
- Vendor risk classification revoked mid term:
surfaces the contract for human re-review
If agent had escalated instead of acting
(rejected path):
- Delay cost during human review window
- Continued exposure to the higher month to
month rate during the delay
- No regulatory or accountability benefit,
because the action sits inside the
delegated scope
If agent had taken no action (rejected path):
- Renewal lapses, workload reverts to month
to month at higher unit cost
- No commitment risk, but no realised saving
- Agent would be acting against the spirit
of its delegation, which directs it to act
on actionable items inside scope
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OUTCOME
Expected outcome, recorded at decision time
(02:23 BST):
- Counter-signature requested from NorthEdge
by 18:00 BST on 2026-05-15.
- On counter-signature, the contract becomes
effective from 00:00 BST on 2026-06-01.
- First invoice expected on or about
2026-07-05.
- Forecast 12 month spend: £42,000 base,
with up to £3,000 additional under the
true-up clause.
Actual outcome to date (recorded as an
addendum at 09:14 BST on 2026-05-15):
- Counter-signature received from NorthEdge
at 08:42 BST.
- Contract effective date confirmed as
2026-06-01.
- No deviations from the proposed terms.
- Head of procurement notified by routine
morning report; no objection raised within
the agent's two hour acknowledgement window.
The decision is closed with outcome COMMITTED.
The agent has scheduled a review checkpoint at
month 9 to assess whether the term should be
renewed, allowed to lapse, or restructured.
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PROVENANCE
Content hash:
sha256:3d7a1c5b9e2f4d8a6c1b3e5f7a9c4b2d8e6f1a3c5b7d9e4f2a8c6b1d3e5f7a9c4b2d8e6f1a3c5b7d9e
Previous record hash:
sha256:6a2c8b4e1f9d3a5c7b2e4f6a8c1b3d5e9f7a2c4b6d8e1f3a5c7b9d2e4f6a8c1b3d5e7f9a2c4b6d8e1f
(preceding procurement agent record in Procura
overnight review chain)
Schema validation: passed (omega-contracts v0.2.2)
Cryptographic seal: valid (sealed 2026-05-15
at 02:23 BST, before counter-signature)
Composition: agent_action_records →
omega_records (canonical envelope)
Operator of record attestation: Helena Marsh,
head of procurement,
under written
delegation
2026-01-05
The substrate paper describing the underlying architecture is available at /substrate/.