Thundercloud Technology
Terminalia · Delegated authority for your agents

Samantha’s email was on fire!
She needed an assistant.

Meet Emily, Samantha’s Email Assistant. Samantha wants Emily drafting replies, and nothing else. Not yet, anyway.

Emily is the agent. Terminalia holds the contract they work under: Samantha decides what Emily can and can’t do, and Terminalia evaluates requests routed through the supported integration against the contract.

The story is fiction, for fun. The contracts, checks and refusals are real: a local test of Terminalia’s reference engine.

Emily, a little grey mouse holding an envelope
Emily · Email assistantDrafting contract

Prepare the reply.
Leave sending to Samantha.

Emily may read the selected message and draft a reply. Sending is outside this contract.

Read a messageAllowed
Draft a replyAllowed
Send a replyRefused
Where Terminalia stands · October 2026Private preview

So far

Private preview. Request preview access by email ↗

The contracts, checks and refusals on this page, recorded by Terminalia’s reference engine in a local test.

Only in the story

Samantha’s inbox. Sending is simulated: no email account is connected.

Not available yet

A connected mailbox in the demo on this page.

Emily’s contract

The first contract is small on purpose

Samantha starts Emily with the least they need: read the message they’re given, draft a reply. Sending stays with Samantha.

01 · The first contract

“Draft it. I’ll send it.”

Emily reads the selected message and prepares a reply. A request to send is refused.

✓ Read selected message
✓ Draft a reply
✕ Send a reply
02 · The replacement

“You may send now, too.”

After a week of sending Emily’s drafts unchanged, Samantha is ready to let replies go out without her. All it takes is a new contract: this one allows sending, and the old one can no longer authorize work.

✓ Read selected message
✓ Draft a reply
✓ Send a reply

In this demo, sending is simulated. No email account is connected.

The selected contract, up close

Emily may read and draft a reply.

Read the selected message and prepare a reply for Samantha to review. Do not send it or access other messages.

Capability gating
message.readreply.draftSending remains outside this contract.
New authority · Old contract retired

Issue the new contract. Revoke the old authority.

Each request in this reference-engine example names the contract it is acting under. Terminalia marks the old contract as superseded, and a request naming it is refused, even if it only asks to draft a reply.

First contract → Send: Refused · capability-not-in-signed-manifest

New contract → Send: Allowed · signed-gated-capability

Old contract → Draft: Refused · intention-authority-superseded

Recorded by Terminalia’s reference engine. Old contract: superseded. New contract: active.

Explore local demonstration contracts and recorded checks. No email account is connected.

Multiple agents · Different contracts

Samantha’s notes were a mess too.
Meet Notey.

Notey takes notes. Samantha gives Notey a separate contract for reading and writing notes. Giving Emily permission to send emails does not give Notey the same permission.

Emily, a little grey mouse holding an envelope
EmilyEmail

Samantha’s Email Assistant

Read selected messages, prepare replies, and send when that capability is included in the contract.

message.readreply.draftreply.send

Shown with the expanded email contract. The first contract allows reading and drafting; the replacement adds sending.

Notey, a little grey mouse with glasses, a notebook and pencil
NoteyNotes

Samantha’s Note-taking Agent

Read and write the notes Samantha selects. Notey has no permission to read or send email.

notes.readnotes.write
✕ Sending email is not permitted
When an agent reaches beyond their contract

What if Notey tries to send an email?

Terminalia refuses the request. Emily’s permission belongs to Emily; it doesn’t become Notey’s.

Recorded permission checks

Notey → Write a note

Allowed
notes.write

notes.write is in Notey’s contract. Notey’s own work goes through.

Notey → Send email

Refused
reply.send

Notey’s contract does not include permission to send email.

Everyone has a place. Nobody has everyone else’s.

The idea underneath · Explicit authority

A prompt is instructions.
A contract is authority.

Terminalia separates task instructions from authority. In the local reference-engine example, the contract identifies the principal and permitted capabilities. A request is evaluated against that contract through the supported authorization path.

01 / A principal

Authority has an owner.

Emily’s example contract comes from Samantha. Changing task instructions does not change the capabilities in that contract.

02 / Separate grants

Permission stays scoped.

In the recorded checks, Emily’s email capability does not grant Notey permission to send. Each request uses its own contract.

03 / An observed boundary

Coverage must be verified.

The checks establish the tested reference-engine behavior. They do not establish interception of actions outside that path or separation based only on agent names.

Where this stands.

Private preview. Each connected system and supported authorization path needs its own qualification. A refusal records a decision at that boundary; it does not prove an external effect was prevented through every possible route.

Read the evidence and its limits →
The product · Terminalia in the Saturn workspace

See their contracts
in Terminalia.

See Emily and Notey’s contracts, then compare the capabilities each agent is allowed to use.

These are screenshots of the Saturn workspace, showing Terminalia’s contracts and checks from a local test of its authorization code.

Current Saturn Agents and agreements screen showing Emily’s email contract and Notey’s notes-only contract
Emily can work with email. Notey can work with notes. View full size.

Local proof: six contracts verified across three stages (read-only, drafting, sending); Notey’s send requests refused at every stage. No email account is connected and no message is sent by this preview.

The story ends well

And the fire went out.

In the fictional ending, Samantha’s inbox is quiet. The local demonstration establishes contract checks and simulated sending only. No mailbox is connected; the story does not establish a real operational outcome.

The Saturn Method

Choose what your agent can do.

Give each agent a job. Set their limits. See what happened. Change your mind when you need to.