Agent Management Follow-up Plan (CEO Patch + Config Rollback + Issue↔Approval Linking)

Status: Proposed
Date: 2026-02-19
Context: Follow-up from run faeab00e-7857-4acc-b2b2-86f6d078adb4

1. Investigation Findings

1.1 Why CEO PATCH failed

Root cause is explicit route logic:

• server/src/routes/agents.ts currently blocks any agent patching another agent:
  • if (req.actor.type === "agent" && req.actor.agentId !== id) { ... "Agent can only modify itself" }

So even though the CEO has hire permission, the route still enforces old self-only patch behavior.

1.2 Why comment quality felt wrong

• skills/paperclip/SKILL.md and skills/paperclip/references/api-reference.md do not currently require markdown formatting quality for status comments (links, structure, readable updates).
• Agents therefore produce plain prose comments with raw IDs, not linked entities.

1.3 Issue↔Approval linkage gap

• There is no direct DB relation between issues and approvals today.
• Approval payloads may include contextual IDs, but this is not canonical linkage.
• UI pages cannot reliably cross-link issue/approval without manual copy-paste IDs.

1.4 Config rollback gap

• Agent config updates currently overwrite state with no dedicated revision history table.
• There is activity logging, but no first-class config version ledger or rollback endpoint.

2. Product/Behavior Changes

2.1 Allow CEO to patch other same-company agents

Target behavior:

• Board: full patch rights.
• CEO: can patch agents in same company.
• Other agents: self-only patch unless explicitly granted future permission.

Note:

• Keep company boundary checks strict.
• Keep privileged fields separately governed.

2.2 Add first-class agent configuration revision log + rollback

Every config-affecting mutation must create a revision record with:

• before snapshot
• after snapshot
• actor info (user/agent)
• optional reason/comment
• source run ID (if available)

Rollback must be one API call that restores a prior revision atomically.

2.3 Enforce markdown and links for issue comments in skills

Skill guidance should require:

• short markdown structure (Summary, Actions, Next)
• links to created/updated entities when relevant
• avoid raw IDs without links

2.4 Add explicit Issue↔Approval linkage (many-to-many)

Implement canonical join model so one issue can link many approvals and one approval can link many issues.

3. Data Model Plan

3.1 New table: agent_config_revisions

Columns:

• id uuid pk
• company_id uuid fk
• agent_id uuid fk
• revision_number int (monotonic per agent)
• reason text null
• changed_by_agent_id uuid null
• changed_by_user_id text null
• run_id uuid null
• before_snapshot jsonb not null
• after_snapshot jsonb not null
• timestamps

Indexes:

• (company_id, agent_id, revision_number desc)
• (agent_id, created_at desc)

3.2 New table: issue_approvals

Columns:

• id uuid pk
• company_id uuid fk
• issue_id uuid fk
• approval_id uuid fk
• relationship text default context
• linked_by_agent_id uuid null
• linked_by_user_id text null
• timestamps

Constraints:

• unique (company_id, issue_id, approval_id)

Indexes:

• (company_id, issue_id)
• (company_id, approval_id)

4. API Plan

4.1 Agent PATCH authz fix

Update PATCH /api/agents/:id authz matrix:

• board: allow
• agent role ceo in same company: allow
• otherwise: self only

4.2 Separate privileged patch fields

Protect these from generic PATCH by non-board/non-ceo:

• permissions
• status transitions outside allowed scope

(Continue using dedicated permission route for permission edits.)

4.3 Config revision APIs

Add:

• GET /api/agents/:id/config-revisions
• GET /api/agents/:id/config-revisions/:revisionId
• POST /api/agents/:id/config-revisions/:revisionId/rollback

Behavior:

• rollback writes a new revision entry (does not mutate history)
• rollback response includes resulting active config

4.4 Issue↔Approval link APIs

Add:

• GET /api/issues/:id/approvals
• POST /api/issues/:id/approvals (link existing approval)
• DELETE /api/issues/:id/approvals/:approvalId
• GET /api/approvals/:id/issues

4.5 Auto-link on approval creation

Extend create payloads to optionally include issue context:

• POST /api/companies/:companyId/approvals supports issueId or issueIds
• POST /api/companies/:companyId/agent-hires supports sourceIssueId or sourceIssueIds

Server behavior:

• create approval first
• insert link rows in issue_approvals

5. UI Plan

5.1 Agent page

Add configuration history panel on AgentDetail:

• revision list
• diff preview
• rollback button with confirmation

5.2 Approval page and Issue page cross-links

• On approval detail: show linked issues with links
• On issue detail: show linked approvals with links
• link/unlink actions in board context

5.3 Better comment UX cues

No hard editor enforcement initially; update helper text and templates to encourage linked markdown updates.

6. Skill Updates

6.1 skills/paperclip/SKILL.md

Add comment standard:

• Use markdown sections
• Include links for related entities:
  • approval: /approvals/{id}
  • agent: /agents/{id}
  • issue: /issues/{id}

6.2 skills/paperclip-create-agent/SKILL.md

Require:

• include sourceIssueId when hire is created from an issue
• comment back to issue with markdown + links to approval and pending agent

7. Implementation Phases

Phase A: Authz + safety hardening

• Fix CEO patch authz in agent route
• Restrict privileged generic patch fields
• Add tests for authz matrix

Phase B: Config revision ledger

• Add agent_config_revisions
• Write-on-change for all relevant agent mutations
• rollback endpoints + tests

Phase C: Issue↔Approval linking

• Add issue_approvals
• add link APIs + auto-link behavior
• update approvals/issues UI cross-links

Phase D: Skill guidance

• update skills for markdown/link expectations and sourceIssue linking

8. Acceptance Criteria

• CEO can patch CTO (same company) successfully.
• Every config change creates a retrievable revision.
• Rollback restores prior config in one action and creates a new revision record.
• Issue and approval pages show stable bidirectional links from canonical DB relation.
• Agent comments in hiring workflow use markdown and include entity links.

9. Risks and Mitigations

• Risk: permission escalation via generic PATCH.
  • Mitigation: isolate privileged fields and validate actor scope.
• Risk: rollback corruption.
  • Mitigation: snapshot-before/snapshot-after + transaction + tests.
• Risk: ambiguous linking semantics.
  • Mitigation: explicit join table + unique constraints + typed relationship field.