TALAMANA · THE AI LITERACY MAP FOR ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN · Studio Practice · AGE 19—21 · FACTUAL · EVOLVING
What can it see, what can it change
An agent under your login acts as you, so grant the least that does the job.
When to use
Before any agent is connected to anything the studio owns: a project folder, a mailbox, a calendar, a drive, a payment account. Again whenever the task changes.
The method
Two columns. Left: what the agent can read. Right: what it can write or act on. For every connection — every tool, connector or integration the agent is given — record three things. The scope: which folders, which mailbox, which accounts, not "the drive". The key: whose credentials it acts under, because an agent acting under your login acts as you. The log: where each action it takes is recorded, so that a wrong action can be found and undone. Grant the least that does the job. Review the two columns when the task changes, because permissions granted for one task quietly outlive it.
Watch for this
Granting whole-drive or whole-mailbox access because the setup screen asked for it. The setup screen was written for convenience, not for your client's drawings.
Try it
Open one AI tool you use and find its connections or permissions page. Write the two columns for what it currently holds. Most students find at least one right-hand entry they never consciously granted.
Prove it
For one agent setup, show the scope, the key and the log for every connection — and name the one you narrowed after writing it down.
How it works
Agents reach the world through tools, and an open standard now exists for connecting a model to tools and data sources — files, databases, search, calendars — so that the same agent can be plugged into many systems. That is what makes agents useful and what makes this card necessary: the connection is standardised, the permission decision is not. It remains a choice someone makes at setup, usually in a hurry. EVOLVING because the permission models, the standards and the products are changing every few months; the two columns do not change.
What this idea builds on
What this idea opens up
Sources
Open this idea on the map · The complete map · Logika · RBDS AI Lab, India · revised every edition.