Test What Your AI Agents Must Not Do
dev.to·
While traditional AI evaluation focuses on positive task completion, production agent governance requires strict negative testing to verify safety boundaries. This write-up introduces refusal canary testing using machine-readable governance contracts (`ota.yaml`). By running deliberate negative test suites, developers can programmatically verify that agent execution engines properly reject unauthorized workflows, enforce safety guardrails, and generate verifiable audit trails prior to task execution, integrating these checks directly into automated CI workflows. For backend developers building autonomous agents, execution safety and governance are critical architectural pillars. Assuming guardrails function without explicit verification creates severe operational risks in production. Adopting refusal canaries in continuous integration guarantees that safety boundaries remain intact across prompt iterations and model updates. Mastering these governance patterns equips engineering leads with the verification tools needed to build secure, enterprise-ready agent systems that predictably fail-safe under adversarial or out-of-bounds scenarios.