Patterns for agent-ready government

Public services that work for people and their agents.

A public catalog of policy challenges and design patterns mapping how people could use AI agents to deal with government, and how government can respond.

The map

Territories

A territory is a cluster of related policy and design challenges where government must make decisions to be agent-ready.

T1

Provenance & Intent

Telling where a submission came from, and whether it states a view the user holds or one an agent generated. A fluent submission no longer proves a user wrote it, yet the agency still has to act on it.

7 patterns
T2

Delegation & Authorization

Letting a user give an AI agent scoped, revocable authority an agency can check is genuine and current. Government's identity systems can prove who a person is, but not what they let an agent do for them.

13 patterns
T3

Accountability & Audit

Keeping what an AI agent did in a user's name visible and answerable, for one case and across a whole population. Mistakes tend to surface only after the damage is done, and one faulty process can repeat on everyone at once.

8 patterns
T4

Trust Calibration

Helping a user judge how far to rely on a government AI agent, and giving the agency a basis to support that judgment. A user can wrongly refuse an agent that would help, or lean on one a serious case needs a human for.

7 patterns
T5

Rationing & Friction

Forms, queues, and deadlines rationed services for years by demanding effort no one designed in. AI agents strip that effort away, forcing a deliberate choice about which friction only excluded people and which metered need.

7 patterns
T6

Volume vs Breadth Signaling

Reading the weight of opinion behind public submissions once agents file fluent, distinct-looking entries at scale. Volume and the look of variety can both be manufactured, so neither shows how widely a view is held.

8 patterns
T7

Representation & Equity

Keeping every user able to reach a government outcome, from a consultation to a benefit, license, or appeal, as private agents come between them and government. Left alone, outcomes start to track who has the better agent.

9 patterns
T8

Verification & Certification

Knowing a reliable civic tool from a confident-sounding wrong one, for users and the automated tools government runs itself. Building an authoritative-looking tool is nearly free; verifying it and standing behind it is not.

8 patterns
T9

Cross-border & Sovereignty

What changes when the AI model behind a service runs, or can be legally compelled, outside a user's own legal protection. It decides whose data law applies and who can reach the data, often without either side able to tell.

8 patterns
The detail

Patterns

Each pattern details a specific impact area and prototypes potential interactions.

01

The impact of agents

How growing agent use will change what a pattern covers.

02

What must be verified

How can government trust the interaction, and who is responsible for verification.

03

Protecting access

Who is at risk of exclusion, and what keeps the path open.

04

Response surface

What a designed response to the challenge looks like.

05

Precedents & sources

What's already been done elsewhere, and how proven the response is.

An example pattern showing a future state interface for agent scope control.

User The control
City Assistant · Permissions
Act without asking each time broad
Ongoing authority with no per-action confirmation. Rarely needed, off by default.
Scoped grant
Government The record
{
  "type": "standing_authority",
  "duration": "ongoing",
  "confirmation": "none"
}
Read the pattern: 2.1 Fine-grained scope negotiation

A work in progress

Feedback, corrections, and collaboration are all welcome: write to hello@agenticsurfaces.org.