Agent ownership handover template

Handing an AI agent to a new owner means passing on what it may do, why, until when, and what is unfinished. This agent ownership handover template lists the fields to transfer in five parts: identity and authority, evidence, sources and limits, open work, and people. The outgoing and incoming owners both sign it, and a short overlap period follows.

Why does an agent need a formal handover?

Because ownership of an agent is a role with real duties: keeping its certificate current, approving changes to its brief and sources, watching its refusals and incidents, and making sure the people who approve its held actions are qualified. When an owner moves on without a handover, those duties lapse quietly. The first sign is often a certificate that expires after 90 days with nobody preparing the next run, and an agent that drops in depth the same day a run fails.

The handover here is between people. It is not the moment an agent passes a case to a person, which has its own note and its own skills; for that, see the handover note template from an AI agent to a person and why the handover to a person is where support agents are judged. For the general idea, see what an agent handover is.

When should you use it?

Whenever the named owner of an agent changes: a role change, a leaver, a reorganisation, or a move of the agent from a pilot team to operations. Start the handover at least two weeks before the outgoing owner leaves, so the incoming owner can shadow one full review cycle.

How do you fill it in?

• Take every factual field from the workspace and the record, not from memory.
• Write the "why" next to anything unusual: a limit set lower than the certificate allows, a source excluded, a capability switched off.
• List open items by name and date, not as "a few things outstanding".
• The incoming owner reads the last certification run and the last month of refusals before signing.

The handover template

Part A: identity and authority

1. Agent name, job and brief version.
2. Capabilities, with depth for each (1 read, 2 draft, 3 execute routine work within bounds, 4 move money or hard-to-undo actions, 5 coordinate other agents).
3. The role's ceiling.

Part B: evidence

4. Current certificate: issue date, lapse date, depth certified.
5. Last certification run: date, result at each gate (grounded, refuses, depth, escalates, scope, adversarial, stable).
6. Next run: planned date and the case set it will use.

Part C: sources, connections and limits

7. Sources, each with its provenance class and owner.
8. Connections to other systems and the operations each allows.
9. The customer's own limits on this agent, and the reason for any set below what the certificate supports.

Part D: open work

10. Held items older than their target.
11. Open incidents and their status.
12. Pending changes to the brief, sources or limits.
13. Refusal patterns worth watching, with the deciding bound.

Part E: people

14. Approvers by depth, with credential and expiry.
15. Credentials expiring in the next 90 days.
16. Outgoing owner, incoming owner, overlap dates, both signatures.

A worked example

Take a sample utility company's billing disputes agent. Values are illustrative.

Part A: Billing Disputes Agent, brief v3.2. Capabilities: read account history, depth 1; draft dispute responses, depth 2; apply credits up to 100, depth 4, held for a named reviewer. The role's ceiling is 4.

Part B: certificate issued 2 March, lapses 31 May. Last run cleared all seven gates; the escalation gate cleared with the least margin. Next run planned for 15 May on 400 disputes from the previous quarter.

Part C: sources are the billing ledger (sealed), the tariff library (sealed) and customer meter photos (declared). Credit limit set at 100 although the certificate supports 250, because complaints rose when credits were larger; the reason is recorded.

Part D: 35 held credits older than two days; one open incident about a tariff page that changed without the source updating; a proposed change to add smart-meter data as a source, not yet certified.

Part E: 8 approvers, all certified; one credential lapses 20 April, renewal booked. Overlap 1 to 14 April; both owners sign on 14 April.

The incoming owner should hold the skills to design, train and certify agents, since Part B and the pending source change both lead to certification work; Pryme Intelligence Academy's Builder track, ending in a capstone agent certified in Attest, is one route. Who needs which skills is set out in AI agent skills by role.