# The nine concepts

> Agent NAS is built on nine named concepts. They answer three questions: where the work happens and what happened; who may do what and on whose say-so; and what the agent knows, how it reads and how it forgets.

The concept names are coined terms and stay in English in every language, with a gloss in the local language. Each page opens with one quotable definition and then covers the problem, the mechanism, how to start small, an interface sketch, what the specification asks for, and what is borrowed along with honest limits. The conformance level says when an implementation should support the concept; see the [specification](https://agentnas.com/spec/).

> **About “new”.** Most of the nine concepts combine mature parts. Each concept page says what it borrows and what is genuinely new. The summary list is on the [comparison](https://agentnas.com/compare/) page.

## Three clusters

### Work

Where does the work happen, and what happened?

- AN-01 [Agent Home](https://agentnas.com/concepts/agent-home/): A directory per role, with history. Plain files you can take with you.
- AN-02 [Agent Branch](https://agentnas.com/concepts/agent-branch/): Each run works on a copy-on-write branch. Only a reviewed merge reaches the main line.
- AN-03 [Flight Recorder](https://agentnas.com/concepts/flight-recorder/): A per-run, hash-linked record that includes what the run read.

### Authority

Who may do what, and on whose say-so?

- AN-04 [Capability Lease](https://agentnas.com/concepts/capability-lease/): A narrow authorization for one run, with an expiry and budgets. Child leases can only be narrower.
- AN-05 [Human Gate](https://agentnas.com/concepts/human-gate/): Appears only before irreversible, outward-facing or privilege-raising actions, and shows the real diff.
- AN-06 [Trust Labels](https://agentnas.com/concepts/trust-labels/): Two small labels plus session taint enforce the Rule of Two.

### Knowledge

What does the agent know, how does it read, and how does it forget?

- AN-07 [Agent Memory](https://agentnas.com/concepts/agent-memory/): Notes you can read and edit are the truth. Indexes are a cache you can throw away.
- AN-08 [Budgeted Reads](https://agentnas.com/concepts/budgeted-reads/): Read a file as an outline, a section, a line range or in full, degrading to fit the budget.
- AN-09 [Cascade Forget](https://agentnas.com/concepts/cascade-forget/): Delete derivatives along lineage, handle history by retention class, and report what it could not do.

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Canonical URL: https://agentnas.com/concepts/
Updated: 2026-11-11 · Draft specification v0.2 · CC BY 4.0