Agent Governance Register

Reviewed

Agent incident runbook template

In short: This template is a runbook for incidents involving AI agents. It walks responders through detection, containment with the kill switch, evidence capture, owner notification, recovery and a written review. Evidence capture comes before cleanup, because an agent's logs and tokens are the record you will need later.

Download Agent incident runbook (MD)

Trigger

Start this runbook when an agent acts outside its purpose, a denied-action spike appears, a credential leaks or a user reports harm.

Step 1: confirm and classify

  • Identify the agent, its owner and the person it acted for (GOV-01, GOV-02, GOV-13).
  • Classify severity using the risk tier of the actions involved.

Step 2: contain

  • Use the kill switch for the agent, or for all agents if scope is unclear (GOV-11).
  • Revoke the agent's credentials and confirm cached tokens fail (GOV-05).

Step 3: capture evidence

  • Export audit logs for the agent and the person it acted for (GOV-13).
  • Preserve approvals, denials and policy versions in force at the time.
  • Record the time of each step.

Step 4: notify

  • Tell the agent owner and the security lead.
  • Involve legal and privacy if personal data was touched.

Step 5: recover

  • Fix the cause: policy, permission, tool or prompt.
  • Test the fix with policy replay before restoring access (GOV-09).
  • Restore access through a change ticket (GOV-20).

Step 6: review

  • Write a short review within five working days.
  • Add findings to the next board one-pager (GOV-24).

Which controls does it support?

Reviewed by The Register desk