THE SEVEN-LAYER ETCLOVG TAXONOMY

CHAPTER SUMMARY A taxonomy is a shared map, and ETCLOVG is the seven-layer map this book uses for harness engineering. Execution drives the loop, Tooling supplies capabilities, Context manages working memory, Lifecycle controls the start, limits, and end of a run, Observability lets you see what happened, Verification checks correctness, and Governance enforces safety, permissions, and compliance. Observability and Governance are kept separate because they ask different questions, are often owned by different teams, and can pull in opposite directions about what to record. The layers constantly exchange information, so a symptom in one layer can have its root cause in another, and tracing symptoms to causes is a core professional skill. KEY TERMS REVIEW Taxonomy: a system for sorting things into named groups. ETCLOVG: the seven-layer framework of Execution, Tooling, Context, Lifecycle, Observability, Verification, and Governance. Run: one complete attempt by an agent to do a job, from start to finish. Control flow: the order in which steps happen and which path is taken at a choice. Trace: a step-by-step history of what happened during a run. Metric: a counted or measured number that describes system behavior. Evaluation: an organized test that measures how well an agent performs on a set of tasks. Compliance: following the laws, regulations, and organizational rules that apply.