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Graph engineering

Vanta's execution model has five nested layers:

  1. Prompt — the instruction for one model call.
  2. Context — project instructions, retrieved evidence, memory, skills, and tool schemas selected for that call.
  3. Harness — the agent runtime, tools, retries, budgets, receipts, and Rust safety kernel around the model.
  4. Loop — the mechanism that continues work until an executable gate, budget, or human decision says stop.
  5. Graph — the organization of multiple agents, tools, loops, and people around shared state and conditional routes.

Vanta already runs declarative workflow graphs with agent, approval, and interview nodes plus branch, bounded-loop, and parallel transitions. Graph engineering is the next product layer: make coordination durable and inspectable instead of asking the operator to carry it between chats.

The intended contract​

The shared state carries typed outputs, artifact references, decisions, budgets, approvals, and provenance. It is not a merged chat transcript. Each node receives only the fields and tools it needs.

Completion is evidence​

A model saying “done” is not a stop condition. Graph completion must come from a declared signal such as:

  • a test or validation command passing;
  • an artifact satisfying a schema or checksum;
  • an independent reviewer accepting the current revision;
  • a required human approval;
  • a budget, cancellation, or no-progress rule halting the run.

Reaching an attempt limit is exhausted, not successful. The run must preserve the unmet condition and a recovery action.

Adaptive, not unconstrained​

A graph may add a scoped researcher when confidence is low, collapse trivial work to one node, route eligible work to a cheaper model class, or escalate to a person. Those changes occur only inside a predeclared policy with hard fan-out, depth, cost, time, tool, and permission limits. Model output cannot expand its own authority.

Operator control​

Every run should expose a compact replay: node attempts, redacted state diffs, selected edges, evidence, costs, approvals, and stop reason. Pause, cancel, safe retry, checkpoint recovery, and human takeover remain available throughout the run.

See the roadmap for the ordered implementation slices.