---
id: "hardman-intent-and-boundaries-a-framework-for-digital-agency"
type: "paper"
type_label: "Papers and paper collections"
title: "Intent and Boundaries: A Framework for Digital Agency"
maintainer: "Daniel Hardman"
authors:
  - "Daniel Hardman"
date: "2025-12-11"
year: 2025
reading_level: "practitioner"
reading_level_label: "Practitioner"
reading_level_meaning: "architects, product people and adopters who know identity systems"
evidence: "informative"
evidence_meaning: "an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite"
status: "quiet"
status_meaning: "no change in six to eighteen months; still correct"
access: "public"
access_meaning: "anyone with the link"
topics:
  - "theory"
roles:
  - "security-architect"
  - "researcher"
source_url: "https://dhh1128.github.io/papers/intent-monograph.html"
source_license: null
source_license_note: null
found_on: "hardman-papers"
kerisse_credit: false
abstract_license: "CC BY 4.0"
abstract_license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
abstract_attribution: "KSKB, the KERISuite Knowledge Base (https://kskb.dev/)"
last_checked: "2026-10-15"
kskb_url: "https://kskb.dev/cards/hardman-intent-and-boundaries-a-framework-for-digital-agency/"
kskb_app_url: "https://kskb.dev/#item/hardman-intent-and-boundaries-a-framework-for-digital-agency"
kskb_record_url: "https://kskb.dev/data/kskb/resources/hardman-intent-and-boundaries-a-framework-for-digital-agency"
kskb_markdown_url: "https://kskb.dev/export/cards/hardman-intent-and-boundaries-a-framework-for-digital-agency.md"
---

# Intent and Boundaries: A Framework for Digital Agency

A 2025 paper by Daniel Hardman defining a model of intent and introducing intent boundaries, the points where an observer's knowledge of an actor's purpose becomes inadequate, with four design principles (recognize, move, peek across, never sneak across). It draws on bioethics, psychology and design theory and is aimed at system designers, particularly of agentic AI.

Labels: reading level Practitioner; evidence informative (an author's paper, deck, tutorial or post explaining the suite).
Source: https://dhh1128.github.io/papers/intent-monograph.html (license not recorded).
The abstract is KSKB's own text under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/; credit KSKB, the KERISuite Knowledge Base (https://kskb.dev/).