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Comment by bogdanoff_2

14 days ago

What do you mean by "actually governing the agents at the system level", and how is it different from "herding cats"?

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bogdanoff_2

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amangsingh  14 days ago

Herding cats is treating the LLM's context window as your state machine. You're constantly prompt-engineering it to remember the rules, hoping it doesn't hallucinate or silently drop constraints over a long session.

System-level governance means the LLM is completely stripped of orchestration rights. It becomes a stateless, untrusted function. The state lives in a rigid, external database (like SQLite). The database dictates the workflow, hands the LLM a highly constrained task, and runs external validation on the output before the state is ever allowed to advance. The LLM cannot unilaterally decide a task is done.

I got so frustrated with the former while working on a complex project that I paused it to build a CLI to enforce the latter. Planning to drop a Show HN for it later today, actually.

  • skeledrew  14 days ago

    > The database dictates the workflow, hands the LLM a highly constrained task, and runs external validation on the output before the state is ever allowed to advance.

    This sounds like where lat.md[0] is headed. Only thing is it doesn't do task constraint. Generally I find the path these tools are taking interesting.

    [0] https://github.com/1st1/lat.md

    • amangsingh  14 days ago

      I looked into lat.md. They are definitely thinking in the same direction by using a CLI layer to govern the agent.

      The key difference is the state mechanism. They use markdown; I use an AES-encrypted SQLite database.

      Markdown is still just text an LLM can hallucinate over or ignore. A database behind a compiled binary acts as a physical constraint; the agent literally cannot advance a task without satisfying the cryptographic gates.

      I just dropped the Show HN for it here if you want to check out the architecture: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47601608

  • mywacaday  14 days ago

    I started that very personal project on Monday, waiting with baited breath, make sure to add a sponsor me a coffee link.

    • amangsingh  14 days ago

      Just posted it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47601608 Thank you so much for the coffee offer, that genuinely made my day! I don't have a sponsor link set up. Honestly, the best support is just hearing if this actually helps you ship your personal project faster without losing your mind to prompt engineering. I really hope it gives you your sanity back. Let me know how it goes!

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