The 10-Line AI Working Agreement Your Team Never Wrote

Most organizations have an AI usage policy by now. Almost no team has an AI working agreement.

The difference matters. The policy is written by legal and answers "what are we allowed to do." The agreement is written by the team and answers "how do we work," which is the question that actually determines whether the tool helps. Policies get signed. Agreements get argued about, which is the point: the argument is the adoption work.

Here is a ten-line version that fits on one page. Steal it, cut lines, add your own, and expect two of them to start a fight. That fight is the deliverable.

1. We Disclose AI Assistance

One checkbox on the PR, no interrogation, no shame. Disclosure is for patterns, not blame.

1. AI assistance is disclosed in the PR. One checkbox. No interrogation.

2. "Done" Includes Verification

No generated code merges on local test runs. The checks pass in CI, where they can't be persuaded.

2. "Done" means CI green, not "worked on my machine."

3. Generated Code Gets a Real Review

By a human who could have written it. Rubber stamps are the failure mode this line exists to prevent.

3. AI-authored code is reviewed like any other code, by someone who could have written it.

4. The Data Line

No customer data, secrets, or regulated content into any tool. The allowlist lives in one URL everyone can find.

4. No customer data, secrets, or regulated content into AI tools. Allowlist: <one link>.

5. Dependencies Get the Same Door

Agent-introduced packages pass the same registry checks as human-introduced ones. The door does not care who is carrying the box.

5. Agent-introduced dependencies pass the same checks as human-introduced ones.

6. Almost-Right Gets Fixed at the Source

When output is nearly correct, we fix the prompt or the spec, not silently hand-patch the diff and move on. This is the line people fight about, because hand-patching feels faster and isn't. 💬

6. Almost-right output gets fixed at the prompt or spec, not hand-patched in the diff.

7. Somebody Owns the Agent Queue

One person per sprint, rotating: approvals, escalations, quota. Unowned queues become nobody's job, which means everybody's interruption.

7. One rotating owner per sprint for agent approvals and escalations.

8. The Customer-Felt Line

Anything a customer feels is never generated and shipped unreviewed: comms, billing, security paths. The second line people fight about, because it sounds like distrust of the tools. It is a statement about blast radius, not belief.

8. Anything customers feel (comms, billing, security paths) ships human-reviewed. Always.

9. We Count Rework, Not Just Velocity

Time spent fixing almost-right counts against the gain. A team that only tracks speed will look productive while going backwards.

9. We track rework alongside velocity. Fixing almost-right is not free.

10. This Agreement Is Re-Read Quarterly

Lines that stopped matching reality get changed, not ignored. An agreement nobody revisits is a policy with worse formatting.

10. Re-read quarterly. Lines that stopped being true get changed.

Print it, argue about lines 6 and 8, and change whatever loses the argument. The version your team writes will be better than this one, because it will be yours, and because the meeting where you fight about line 8 is the first honest conversation about AI risk your team will have had all year.

Which line is missing from yours?

References