Implementation: ENABLED · Exposure: INTERNAL · PUBLIC PREVIEW (contract). See status labels. Agents request attention. They never send a push notification, an email or a chat message themselves. An attention controller owns delivery.

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Architecture contract

AttentionRequestV1 carries run_id, campaign_id (optional), reason, urgency, expected_loss, topic, requested_channel (optional), dedupe_key, expires_at (optional) and evidence_refs. The attention controller owns:
  • Delivery and the channel used
  • Quiet hours and quotas
  • Deduplication by dedupe_key
  • Escalation when a request is not answered
Rules:
  • Any route to a human, including an S3 escalation, goes through an attention request.
  • An approval that expires resolves as a rejection. It fails closed.
  • A hard policy deny never becomes an attention request, and no approval can override one.
  • The first valid answer wins, and it is written as a receipt before it takes effect.
The reasons a run raises attention (approval_required, budget_exhausted, unsafe_resume and others) are listed on The kernel. Why: an agent that can message people directly will eventually message them too often, at the wrong time, on the wrong channel. Making attention a request that one controller decides keeps people in charge of their own interruptions.

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Current implementation

The work runtime on main has the attention gate: agents raise requests through it and do not notify people directly. The request and answer contract is part of the Agency API v0.3 preview.

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Availability

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Developer relevance

Never add a notification call to an agent, tool or executor. Raise an attention request with evidence and a dedupe key, and let the controller deliver it.