Runtime Control for AI Agents: Closing the Evaluation--Execution Gap in Operational Workflows

Overview & Synopsis

Language-model agents increasingly participate in operational workflows where approvals, binds, and payments create commitments. An approval valid when issued may no longer authorize execution after relevant facts, evidence, policy, or authority change. We call this the evaluation--execution gap. We specify a state-bound runtime assurance layer that separates probabilistic measurement from deterministic adjudication, binds an execution allowance to the decision-relevant basis of an approval, invalidates that allowance after relevant logged changes, and rechecks admissibility at dispatch. This distinguishes the continued validity of a prior approval from a current-state policy check. We describe eight failure modes, an assurance model, a reference architecture, and prospective interventions with retrospective remediation. In a scripted 42-case replay, the state-bound configuration identifies 15 later-invalidated approvals that a deliberately non-re-evaluating point-in-time comparator does not revisit; it holds 14 affected actions before dispatch and compensates one landed effect. These results illustrate behavior under the stipulated policies and event orders, not superiority over dispatch-time enforcement designs or production effectiveness. Under explicit interception, ingestion, dependency, and serialization assumptions, the model establishes dispatch-time validity within the registered execution surface.