Agent Charter

Use this template during pilot design, implementation planning, or agent governance to make agent boundaries, ownership, controls, and approvals explicit.

Download the raw source: agent-charter.md.

1. Summary

Field	Value
Agent name	Policy Knowledge Assistant
Use case ID	UC-001
Business or operating context	HR policy support
Business owner	HR Operations Lead
Product owner	HR Knowledge Manager
Technical owner	M365 Platform Owner
Platform	Microsoft 365 Copilot extension
Environment	Pilot
Risk tier	Medium
Lifecycle status	Proposed

2. Outcome

• Target outcome: Reduce routine HR policy response time and improve answer consistency.
• KPI baseline: Average first response time is 2 business days.
• KPI target: 80 percent of policy questions answered same day.
• Measurement method: Pilot analytics, sampled answer review, and HR ticket deflection.
• Review cadence: Weekly during pilot, monthly after release.

3. Scope

In scope:

• Answer questions from approved HR policy pages.
• Cite the source page used for each policy answer.
• Route employee-specific or ambiguous questions to HR operations.

Out of scope:

• Individual employment advice.
• Payroll corrections or benefits enrollment changes.
• Interpretation of policies outside the approved source library.

Prohibited actions:

• Create, update, or delete employee records.
• Provide legal advice or make eligibility determinations.
• Answer from unapproved files or personal chat history.

4. Users And Channels

• Target users: HR business partners and employees in the pilot group.
• User channel: Microsoft 365 Copilot.
• Authentication method: Entra ID.
• Authorization model: Current user permissions with SharePoint permission trimming.

5. Knowledge And Grounding

Source	Purpose	Owner	Freshness	Permission Model	Compliance Notes
HR policy SharePoint library	Ground answers in approved policy content	HR Knowledge Manager	Daily	Microsoft 365 group permissions	Contains employment policy content
Regional HR FAQ pages	Answer region-specific questions	HR Operations Lead	Weekly	Region-based SharePoint groups	Archive stale pages before pilot

Grounding pattern:

• RAG/search: Microsoft 365 Copilot grounding over approved SharePoint sources.
• API/tool access: None for pilot.
• MCP/connectors: None for pilot.
• Other: Source citation required for all policy answers.

6. Tools And Actions

Tool Or Action	Read/Write	System	Required Permission	Approval Required	Audit Evidence
Policy search	Read	SharePoint Online	Current user access	No	Copilot interaction logs and cited source
HR escalation link	Write draft only	HR ticketing intake	Pilot user access	User submits final request	Ticket intake audit log

7. Orchestration

• Single-agent or multi-agent: Single-agent pilot.
• Orchestration approach: Grounded question answering with escalation when confidence or policy coverage is insufficient.
• Deterministic workflow points: Escalation link and ticket routing use fixed forms.
• Human approval points: User confirms before submitting any HR ticket.
• Fallback path: Direct users to HR operations when answer cannot be grounded.
• Escalation path: HR operations queue owned by the HR Knowledge Manager.

8. Memory, Retention, And Privacy

• Conversation history retention: Follow tenant Copilot retention policy.
• Business or operational data retention: No new business records created by the agent during pilot.
• Memory allowed: Session context only.
• Memory prohibited: Persistent memory containing employee-specific details.
• Sensitive data handling: Do not request personal employee details unless routing to HR intake.
• Deletion process: Use standard Microsoft 365 retention and deletion workflow.

9. Instructions And Prompt Library

• Instruction owner: HR Knowledge Manager.
• Versioning method: Managed prompt file in the HR pilot repository.
• Review process: Weekly review with HR operations and M365 platform owner.
• Approved prompt library location: HR pilot SharePoint workspace.
• Prompt evaluation method: Golden question set with source citation and escalation checks.

10. Security And Responsible AI Controls

Control Area	Required Control	Evidence
Identity and access	Entra ID and SharePoint permission trimming	Pilot access test results
Data loss prevention	Sensitivity labels on HR policy sources	Purview label review
Prompt injection defense	Ignore instructions embedded in source documents	Red-team test results
Content safety	Refuse unsupported employment advice	Golden test set review
Audit trail	Retain conversation and source evidence per tenant policy	Copilot usage export
Human oversight	Escalate ambiguous or employee-specific questions	Sample escalation log
Privacy and compliance	Do not store employee-specific memory	Privacy review signoff
Cost control	Monitor pilot usage weekly	Copilot usage dashboard

11. Operations

• Telemetry location: Copilot usage dashboard and HR pilot review workbook.
• Dashboard owner: M365 Platform Owner.
• Support owner: HR Operations Lead.
• Incident process: Route suspected data exposure to security and privacy intake.
• Pause procedure: Remove pilot group access and disable app publication.
• Review cadence: Weekly during pilot.
• Retirement criteria: Retire if answer quality remains below 85 percent after source remediation.

12. Approval

Role	Name	Decision	Date
Business owner	HR Operations Lead	Pending	2026-06-20
Product owner	HR Knowledge Manager	Pending	2026-06-20
Security	Security Reviewer	Pending	2026-06-20
Compliance/privacy	Privacy Reviewer	Pending	2026-06-20
Platform owner	M365 Platform Owner	Pending	2026-06-20
Operations owner	HR Operations Lead	Pending	2026-06-20