Not every action needs the same certainty about cost. Cost-confidence tiers match the reversibility of an action to the confidence you have in its economics.
The three tiers
- Tier A — verified cost: Shopify cost_per_item or a manual entry. Unlocks discount_test, the only price action.
- Tier B — estimated cost: an AliExpress reverse-image match. Soft, reversible actions run; price moves wait.
- Tier C — unknown: no cost data. Observe, propose, and flag orphans — nothing margin-sensitive.
Why the tier lives on the row
The tier is stamped on the decision row at the moment of action. So when an auditor reads it later, they see the confidence the agent actually had — not what's known now after costs were restated.
Match the reversibility of an action to your confidence in its cost. Soft and reversible can move on estimates; expensive and sticky waits for facts.
Policy that can't drift
Because the tier gate is enforced in the decision engine's code path — discount_test simply won't clear without Tier A and the margin floor — your margin policy is enforced at decision time rather than living in a Notion doc nobody reads. What the agent is allowed to do is encoded where it can't quietly drift away from intent.