Agent Management Overview

Field	Value
Document ID	ASCEND-AGENT-004
Version	2026.04
Last Updated	April 2026
Author	Ascend Engineering Team
Publisher	OW-KAI Technologies Inc.
Classification	Enterprise Client Documentation
Compliance	SOC 2 CC6.1/CC6.2, PCI-DSS 7.1/8.3, HIPAA 164.312, NIST 800-53 AC-2/SI-4

Reading Time: 8 minutes | Skill Level: Beginner

Introduction

ASCEND provides enterprise-grade management for AI agents operating in your organization. Every agent must be registered, configured, and monitored before it can execute governed actions.

warning

Agents set to autonomous mode can execute actions without human approval up to their configured risk threshold. Review trust levels and risk thresholds carefully before enabling autonomous operation.

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                      AGENT MANAGEMENT ARCHITECTURE                           │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│                                                                              │
│   ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐   │
│   │                         AGENT REGISTRY                               │   │
│   │                                                                       │   │
│   │   ┌───────────────┐  ┌───────────────┐  ┌───────────────┐           │   │
│   │   │  Agent        │  │  Agent        │  │  Agent        │           │   │
│   │   │  Registration │  │  Lifecycle    │  │  Versions     │           │   │
│   │   │               │  │               │  │               │           │   │
│   │   │ • agent_id    │  │ • draft       │  │ • 1.0.0       │           │   │
│   │   │ • type        │  │ • pending     │  │ • 1.0.1       │           │   │
│   │   │ • org_id      │  │ • active      │  │ • 1.1.0       │           │   │
│   │   │ • policies    │  │ • suspended   │  │ • rollback    │           │   │
│   │   └───────────────┘  └───────────────┘  └───────────────┘           │   │
│   │                                                                       │   │
│   └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘   │
│                                     │                                        │
│                    ┌────────────────┼────────────────┐                       │
│                    │                │                │                       │
│                    ▼                ▼                ▼                       │
│   ┌─────────────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────────────┐         │
│   │   Health Monitor    │  │ Kill-Switch │  │   Anomaly Detect    │         │
│   │                     │  │             │  │                     │         │
│   │ • Heartbeat         │  │ • BLOCK     │  │ • Rate anomaly      │         │
│   │ • Performance       │  │ • UNBLOCK   │  │ • Error rate        │         │
│   │ • Error tracking    │  │ • SUSPEND   │  │ • Risk deviation    │         │
│   │ • Auto-suspend      │  │ • < 500ms   │  │ • Auto-alert        │         │
│   └─────────────────────┘  └─────────────┘  └─────────────────────┘         │
│                                                                              │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Key Capabilities

1. Agent Registration

from ascend import AscendClient

client = AscendClient(api_key="owkai_...")

# Register a new agent
registration = client.register(
    agent_id="financial-agent-001",
    agent_name="Financial Advisor Bot",
    agent_type="supervised",
    capabilities=["database.query", "api.read"],
    metadata={
        "owner": "finance-team@company.com",
        "environment": "production"
    }
)

print(f"Registered: {registration['agent_id']}")
print(f"Trust Level: {registration['trust_level']}")

2. Lifecycle Management

Agents progress through defined lifecycle states:

State	Description	Actions Allowed
`draft`	Being configured	None
`pending_approval`	Awaiting admin review	None
`active`	Operational	Full
`suspended`	Temporarily disabled	None
`deprecated`	Scheduled removal	Read-only
`retired`	Decommissioned	None

3. Health Monitoring

Continuous monitoring with Datadog-style metrics:

Heartbeat tracking — Detect offline agents
Performance metrics — Response time, error rate
Auto-suspension — Trigger on thresholds
Anomaly detection — Behavioral deviation alerts

4. Kill-Switch

Sub-500ms emergency agent shutdown:

# Emergency stop - immediate effect
client.kill_switch(
    agent_id="compromised-agent",
    reason="Security incident detected"
)

Agent Types

ASCEND supports five agent types with different trust levels:

Type	Trust	Auto-Approve	Use Case
autonomous	Low	Risk < 40	AI making independent decisions
supervised	Medium	Risk < 30	Human-in-the-loop for high risk
advisory	High	Risk < 50	Recommendations only
mcp_server	Medium	Varies	Model Context Protocol servers
custom	Configurable	Custom	Special use cases

Type Selection Guide

                    ┌────────────────────────────────────┐
                    │       What does your agent do?      │
                    └───────────────┬────────────────────┘
                                    │
              ┌─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┐
              │                     │                     │
              ▼                     ▼                     ▼
    ┌─────────────────┐  ┌─────────────────┐  ┌─────────────────┐
    │ Makes decisions │  │ Provides        │  │ Exposes tools   │
    │ independently   │  │ recommendations │  │ via MCP         │
    └────────┬────────┘  └────────┬────────┘  └────────┬────────┘
             │                    │                    │
             ▼                    ▼                    ▼
    ┌─────────────────┐  ┌─────────────────┐  ┌─────────────────┐
    │   autonomous    │  │    advisory     │  │   mcp_server    │
    │                 │  │                 │  │                 │
    │ Strict limits   │  │ Relaxed limits  │  │ Tool-level      │
    │ Low risk cap    │  │ High auto-      │  │ governance      │
    │ Time windows    │  │ approve         │  │                 │
    └─────────────────┘  └─────────────────┘  └─────────────────┘

Multi-Tenant Isolation

All agents are scoped to organizations with complete isolation:

# Source: services/agent_registry_service.py:776
# Agents are ALWAYS filtered by organization_id
query = db.query(RegisteredAgent).filter(
    RegisteredAgent.organization_id == organization_id
)

Isolation guarantees:

Agent IDs unique within organization
Cross-tenant access impossible
Policies scoped to organization
Audit logs isolated

Quick Start

1. Register Agent

curl -X POST "https://pilot.owkai.app/api/agents/registry" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer owkai_..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "agent_id": "my-agent-001",
    "display_name": "My First Agent",
    "agent_type": "supervised",
    "allowed_action_types": ["database.query", "api.read"],
    "auto_approve_below": 30,
    "max_risk_threshold": 80
  }'

2. Activate Agent

curl -X POST "https://pilot.owkai.app/api/agents/registry/my-agent-001/activate" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer owkai_..."

3. Start Sending Heartbeats

import time
import requests

while True:
    requests.post(
        "https://pilot.owkai.app/api/agents/health/heartbeat",
        headers={"Authorization": "Bearer owkai_..."},
        json={
            "agent_id": "my-agent-001",
            "metrics": {
                "response_time_ms": 45.2,
                "error_rate": 0.5,
                "requests_count": 1247
            }
        }
    )
    time.sleep(60)  # Every 60 seconds

4. Submit Actions

from ascend import AscendClient

client = AscendClient(
    api_key="owkai_...",
    agent_id="my-agent-001"
)

result = client.evaluate_action(
    action_type="database.query",
    resource="customers",
    parameters={"query": "SELECT * FROM users LIMIT 10"}
)

if result.execution_allowed:
    # Proceed with action
    pass

API Endpoints

Endpoint	Method	Description
`/api/agents/registry`	POST	Register agent
`/api/agents/registry`	GET	List agents
`/api/agents/registry/{id}`	GET	Get agent details
`/api/agents/registry/{id}`	PUT	Update agent
`/api/agents/registry/{id}/activate`	POST	Activate agent
`/api/agents/registry/{id}/suspend`	POST	Suspend agent
`/api/agents/health/heartbeat`	POST	Send heartbeat
`/api/agents/health/summary`	GET	Health dashboard
`/api/agents/control/block`	POST	Kill-switch

Compliance

Agent management meets enterprise compliance requirements:

Standard	Requirement	Implementation
SOC 2 CC6.1	Access control	Agent registration
SOC 2 CC6.2	Authorization	Activation approval
SOC 2 CC7.1	Monitoring	Health tracking
NIST AC-2	Account management	Lifecycle states
NIST IR-4	Incident handling	Kill-switch
PCI-DSS 8.3	Identity management	Agent registry
HIPAA 164.308	Security incidents	Auto-suspend

Best Practices

Use descriptive agent IDs — Include team, purpose, environment
Set appropriate type — Don't use autonomous for supervised tasks
Configure thresholds — Tune risk thresholds to your use case
Enable heartbeats — Critical for health monitoring
Plan for incidents — Test kill-switch procedures

Next Steps

Agent Registry — Detailed registration guide
Lifecycle Management — State transitions
Trust Levels — Agent type deep dive
Health Monitoring — Metrics and alerts
Kill-Switch — Emergency procedures

Document Version: 2026.04 | Last Updated: April 2026

Introduction​

Architecture​

Key Capabilities​

1. Agent Registration​

2. Lifecycle Management​

3. Health Monitoring​

4. Kill-Switch​

Agent Types​

Type Selection Guide​

Multi-Tenant Isolation​

Quick Start​

1. Register Agent​

2. Activate Agent​

3. Start Sending Heartbeats​

4. Submit Actions​

API Endpoints​

Compliance​

Best Practices​

Next Steps​