Start renewal well before the 90 days are up. Review what changed during the period, refresh the case set with recent filed work, incidents and any new attacks, and re-run every gate. The capability owner approves the new certificate. If the run has not passed by the expiry date, the capability falls back to depth 1, with no extension.
Why do certificates lapse, and who owns renewal?
A certificate states that an agent, with a specific brief, proved a capability on a specific set of cases. Every one of those things ages. The work changes, customers change, the model provider ships updates, fraudsters find new approaches. Certificates lapse after 90 days so that evidence is never older than one quarter. The reasoning is set out in why does an agent certificate lapse?.
The capability owner owns renewal. Operations needs to know the dates, because a missed renewal means the agent drops to depth 1 and work moves to people. Risk or compliance reviews any change to floors.
What are the steps?
- Platform: tracks expiry. Every certificate's expiry date, with alerts to the owner at set points before it.
- Person, owner: reviews the period. Live verdict mix, reviewer edits, escalations, incidents, complaints, version changes and any drift alerts since the last certificate.
- Person, owner: refreshes the case set. Adds recent filed cases, every incident from the period, and any attack that succeeded in red-teaming or live operation. Retires cases that no longer reflect the work, with a reason.
- Person: reviews floors. Changes only with a documented reason and risk sign-off, and only before the run.
- Platform: runs the replay. Full set, all seven gates.
- Person, reviewer: reads failures. Even if every gate clears.
- Person, owner: approves renewal. A new certificate with a new 90-day expiry, naming the new set version and scores.
- Platform: enforces lapse. If no passing run is approved by the expiry date, the capability falls to depth 1 that day.
| Step | The agent does | Depth | Stays with a person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Track | Works as normal | Certified depth | None |
| Review period | Works as normal | Certified depth | Reading the evidence |
| Refresh set | Works as normal | Certified depth | Approving new cases |
| Floors | Works as normal | Certified depth | Any change, with reasons |
| Replay | Answers the set, simulated | Replay only | None |
| Failures | Works as normal | Certified depth | Reading every failure |
| Renew | Continues at evidenced depth | Lower of evidence and ceiling | Approval |
| Lapse | Drops if not renewed | 1 | Restoring through a new run |
What controls make it safe?
No renewal without a run. The platform will not extend a certificate's date on approval alone. A renewal is a new certificate earned by a new run. Evidence: the run record behind every renewal.
Expiry enforced by the platform. Nobody needs to remember to reduce depth on the expiry date. Evidence: the filed depth change on the day of any lapse.
Set changes visible. Each renewal's set version is compared with the last, showing cases added, retired and corrected. A set that never changes is visible too.
Floors locked before the run. Floor changes after seeing results are refused. Evidence: the floor version timestamp against the run timestamp.
Named approval. The renewal is approved by the owner under their own identity. If the owner has changed since the last certificate, the new owner approves.
The certificate itself, with its fields, is described in the AI agent certificate template, and what it does and does not attest is covered in what does an AI agent certificate cover?.
How early should you start?
Early enough that a failed run can be fixed and re-run before expiry. That depends on how long your fixes take. For a drafting capability with a stable brief, a few weeks may be plenty. For a depth 4 capability with complex sources, start sooner. The certificate renewal checklist for AI agents suggests a sequence.
Plan renewals across the whole agent, not one certificate at a time. If an agent holds several capabilities certified on different dates, renewals arrive every few weeks and each competes with daily work. Aligning dates means one review of the period, one refresh of shared sources and one set of runs. The cost is that the first alignment shortens some certificates.
If the renewal run fails, follow the failed-run process: depth drops the same day, not at expiry.
What should you measure?
- Certificates renewed before expiry. Should be all.
- Days between renewal approval and expiry. Renewals approved on the last day suggest the process starts too late.
- Cases added per renewal, especially from incidents.
- Renewal runs that failed, and the cause.
- Gate scores across successive renewals. A slow decline on one gate is worth acting on before it crosses the floor.
What are the signs it is going wrong?
- The same set every quarter. The renewal proves the agent still handles last quarter's work.
- Renewals bunched at the deadline. Pressure to approve rises when the alternative is depth 1 tomorrow.
- Passing renewals alongside rising live edits. The set no longer reflects the work. Add the cases people are correcting.
- Incidents missing from the set. Every incident in the period should appear as a case at the next renewal.
- Owners who have moved on. The approver on the last certificate has left the team and nobody has taken the capability over, so renewal alerts go nowhere.
- Floors drifting down. Each change had a reason; together they have hollowed out the certificate.
The wider framework is in what it means to certify an agent, and the meaning of the certificate itself in agent certificate: what it means for AI agents.
Questions people ask
Can a certificate be renewed early?
Yes. Renewing early resets the 90 days from the new approval. Some teams renew all of an agent's capabilities together to keep dates aligned.
What if nothing changed during the period?
Run anyway. "Nothing changed" is a claim the run tests. Model updates and input shifts often go unnoticed until a replay shows them.
Does a lapse delete the certificate?
No. The lapsed certificate stays on file, marked as lapsed, as part of the agent's history.