A sandbox PR changed one GitHub Actions workflow permission:
permissions:
contents: write
The base branch had:
permissions:
contents: read
That is the concrete case I am trying to calibrate.
Agent Gate reported:
Agent Gate: NEEDS HUMAN DECISION
Decision: warn
Why: contents permission increased from read to write.
Path: .github/workflows/demo-release.yml
Recommended next step: review the workflow permission change before merging.
Policy status: warning today; eligible to become a merge gate after tuning.
Rule: workflow/permission-escalation
Policy source: built-in default
Live PR comment proof:
https://github.com/sjh9714/agent-gate-install-smoke-20260617/pull/13#issuecomment-4828248162
What matters to me is that this did not depend on an LLM noticing the change.
The Action did not:
- checkout PR code
- run repository scripts
- call an LLM at runtime
- load policy from the PR head branch
The first-run repo config was also absent. Agent Gate used its built-in default policy and recorded:
configSource: default
I am not trying to claim that the PR is automatically bad. A permission increase can be intentional.
The question is what CI should do when it sees this kind of boundary change.
My current default is:
- warn on first run
- keep the report human-readable
- let teams promote this finding to block after tuning
For AI-generated PRs, I think deterministic CI evidence is useful because agent changes can touch workflow and security boundaries as part of ordinary work.
But this specific finding is broader than AI: any PR that raises GitHub Actions permissions may deserve deliberate review.
Question:
In your repo, is this block, warn, or noise?
What extra evidence would make it actionable?