PLATFORM
E31 Agency is the control plane on Czar. You compose a job, freeze it as a version, point an address at that version, and read what each run did. The appliance is where the model runs and where the material stays.
THE DESIGN
An operator lays out what the agent does in order. A step reads, drafts, decides, waits, or calls. The waits are explicit: this is where a named role has to approve before anything leaves the appliance or changes a system of record. The design is the thing you discuss, because it is the thing that will run.
THE FILE
A developer can describe that design as a file. Review comments, source control, and generated changes all land on the same agent the operator sees on the canvas. Publishing either description produces one version.
THE VERSION
A published version is immutable. Later edits become the next version. Live traffic calls a version you published, on an address your applications already know. Moving that address to a new version, or back to an older one, is a deploy. Turning the address off is an operator action.
THE MODELS
Agency calls the models you host on the appliance. An admin decides which of those models a given agent may use. The run uses that set. If the model is not being served, the run says so and stops, rather than borrowing a model from somewhere else.
THE MATERIAL
Grounding is a step, scoped to the collections that agent may see. The passages it used travel with the draft, so a reviewer can check them. The documents remain on the appliance. An agent allowed into one collection stays in that collection.
THE TOOLS
Reaching another system means writing the call down: where it goes, what it sends, which credential it may present. That description is attached to the version. Credentials are available to the run and are not readable back out by the people operating the agent. A system that is not described is not called.
THE BOUNDS
You set the limits on a run: how many steps, how long it may take, how many outside calls. Past that line the run stops, and the record says which limit it hit. The bounds are part of the version, so a change to them is a publish.