Secure AI agent deployment checklist

Q: Does this checklist make me compliant?

No. It helps you implement and evidence controls (Art. 9/12/14/15) as decision-support. Conformity is the deploying organization's responsibility across the full system and depends on the current Official Journal text and effective dates.

Before you ship

[ ] Tool inventory — every tool the agent can call is listed and owned by someone.
[ ] Risk rating — each tool is rated low / medium / high with a matching control.
[ ] No unrated tools — anything new defaults to blocked or flagged, never silently allowed.

Tool inventory & ratings

Walk the agent's capability list and rate each tool (see our tool-call risk rating guide). A read-only lookup is low; an outbound request is medium; a delete or write is high. Attach the control per tier: log for low, allowlist+rate-limit for medium, human approval for high. This single step closes most incident paths.

Filters & allowlist

[ ] Input filter — rejects oversized payloads, flags injection.
[ ] Output redaction — strips PII/secrets from replies and tool results.
[ ] Destination allowlist — email/HTTP only to approved hosts, default-deny.
[ ] Blocklist — known-bad patterns for fast reject.

Human oversight

For high-risk tools, require a named approver before execution. This is both good engineering and the practical expression of EU AI Act Art. 14 (human oversight of high-risk systems). Make the approval step explicit and logged — not a silent auto-yes.

Logging & monitoring

[ ] Every high-risk call logs: trigger, destination, size, decision.
[ ] Blocked attempts are visible, not silent.
[ ] Logs retained long enough for incident review and Art. 12 traceability.

EU AI Act mapping (high-risk only)

If the agent is deployed in an Annex III high-risk use:

Map each high-risk action to the obligation it touches (Art. 9 risk mgmt, 12 logging, 14 oversight, 15 robustness).
Note the current effective date (Annex III duties currently track toward 2 Dec 2027 under the Digital Omnibus) — verify before committing.
Treat the guardrail layer as evidence of controls, not a certificate.

Authoritative references

EU AI Act (Reg. 2024/1689): https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj
OWASP LLM Top 10: https://owasp.org/www-project-top-10-for-large-language-model-applications/
European Commission AI policy: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai

FAQ

What is the first step before deploying an AI agent?

Build a complete tool inventory and rate every tool low/medium/high with a matching control. Most agent incidents trace to one unguarded, unrated tool call, so this single step closes most paths.

What belongs on a secure-agent checklist?

Tool inventory + risk ratings, input/output filters, a destination allowlist (default-deny), human approval for high-risk tools, per-call logging, and — for high-risk uses — an EU AI Act obligation map.

How does the checklist relate to EU AI Act Art. 14?

Requiring a named human approver before high-risk tool execution is the practical expression of Art. 14 (human oversight). The checklist turns that duty into an explicit, logged step rather than a silent auto-yes.

Does this checklist make me compliant?

No. It helps you implement and *evidence* controls (Art. 9/12/14/15) as decision-support. Conformity is the deploying organization's responsibility across the full system and depends on the current Official Journal text and effective dates.

Why is logging on the checklist?

Logs make oversight and traceability real (EU AI Act Art. 12): you can show what the agent did, what was blocked, and what left the boundary. Without logs, the other controls are silent and unprovable.

## Disclaimer

Disclaimer (decision-support, not legal advice): This checklist is an engineering aid, not a legal standard, a certification, or a guarantee of secure or compliant deployment. For high-risk uses it supports — but does not alone satisfy — EU AI Act duties, and effective dates change (Digital Omnibus). Consult qualified counsel and the Official Journal (Reg. 2024/1689). AgentAegis generates ratings and logs as decision-support only.

Run the secure-deployment checklist on your agent with AgentAegis — try AgentAegis.