Control what Forward Deployed Agents can do
A Forward Deployed Agent is an AI agent, such as Claude or Codex, that a person connects to Thunk.AI through the FDA MCP. It acts as that person. It can never do more than the person's role on a thunk allows, and three more controls can narrow what it does:
Your organization's rules. An organization owner or admin decides what every member's agent may do, in each phase.
A thunk's own switches. A thunk's owner or an admin decides what any agent may do on that one thunk.
Your own allowed thunks. You decide which thunks your agent may change or run, and for how long.
An agent can take an action only when every one of these allows it. People are not affected: you can still do everything your role allows yourself, in the app.
To connect an agent in the first place, see Build thunks from Claude Code or Codex.
What an agent can do
An agent can:
Read a thunk: its design, its work items and its history.
Change a thunk: its steps, properties, tools, connections and settings.
Run a thunk: create and run work items, send messages and test tools.
Create thunks: start a new thunk or copy one.
A thunk's phase (Prototype, Testing or Production, set in Deploy → Phase) matters for the organization's rules. An agent that cannot read a thunk cannot change or run it either.
Set your organization's rules
You need to be an owner or admin of the organization.
Open Account, then Org Admin: your organization, then FDA Access. Only the organization's owner and admins see it.
Choose Add a rule for everyone, or pick a group in Add a group rule.
In each rule, choose whether agents may Create and copy thunks, and tick the phases in which they may Read, Change and Run thunks.
Choose Save.
How the rules combine:
A group's rule replaces the rule for everyone, for that group's members. Use this to give one team more room, for example to let your workflow builders change Testing thunks while everyone else can only read them.
Someone in several groups with rules gets everything any of those rules allows.
Someone in several organizations gets only what every one of their organizations allows.
With no rules, agents may read and run thunks in every phase and create thunks, and may change thunks that are not in Production. To let agents change Production thunks, write a rule that ticks Production under Change.
Limit agents on one thunk
You need to be the thunk's owner or an admin.
Open the thunk and choose Users and Roles.
In Forward Deployed Agents, turn off what no agent should do on this thunk: read it, change it or run it.
These switches apply to every agent, including your own and the owner's. Everyone else who can open Users and Roles sees them, but cannot change them.
Choose what your own agent may do
Your agent can change or run a thunk only when you have allowed it, in Account → Forward Deployed Agent → Allowed Thunks:
One thunk at a time. Add a thunk and choose whether the agent may change it, run it, or both, for 1 hour, 1 day or with no time limit. When your agent creates or copies a thunk, that new thunk is allowed for 1 day.
By phase. Allow the agent to change, run, or change and run every thunk in a phase. Choose how long the grant lasts first.
A phase grant also covers thunks that other people share with you later. Prefer allowing thunks one at a time unless you work across many.
When an agent is refused
The agent tells you why, and who can change it:
Your organization does not allow it. Ask an organization owner or admin to change the rule in FDA Access.
The thunk's owner or an admin turned it off. Ask them to change the switch in the thunk's Users and Roles.
The thunk is not on your allowed thunks. The agent gives you a link that opens Allowed Thunks with that thunk ready to add.
Your role does not allow it. For example, only a thunk's owner and admins can change it. An allowed thunk does not change your role.