AI Work Governance Patterns for AI agents that file work items autonomously. Without these gates, agents create busy work that doesn't compound product value, flood queues, and leak sensitive data into issue trackers. Design Principle Governance lives in output schema and machine-enforced ceilings, not in process checklists. Human review gates erode within weeks without active discipline; machine gates run forever. Order of reliability: config-enforced ceilings regex scans schema field presence agent self-checks human review files human per-item review . Design your system so it degrades grac…