//AGENT-NATIVE APPLICATION VOCABULARY
PDP (policy decision point)
In agent governance, a PDP (policy decision point) is an independent, model-backed evaluator that judges whether an agent-native app's governed actions comply with its constitution. It exists because an agent cannot be the sole auditor of its own behavior. A PDP is an independent evaluator, not a formal mathematical verifier: it strengthens oversight structurally, and it does not make automation infallible or make high-stakes use inherently safe.
The PDP's placement matters more than its cleverness. Putting evaluation outside the acting agent means a compliance judgment survives the agent being wrong, confused, or compromised, in the same way a code reviewer's value comes from not being the author.
Its limits are part of its definition. A model-backed evaluator can be wrong. The specification treats the PDP as one layer among several (constitution, hash, recorded actions, human escalation), not as a safety guarantee, and this site never claims otherwise.