How much freedom do you give the agent?

I have a few questions, and I would appreciate hearing how others handle this in their own systems.

How much freedom do you give the agent to interpret the workflow? For example, do you prescribe the exact files, order of operations, and validation steps, or do you allow the agent to navigate the workspace and decide what applies? Where have you found that flexibility helpful, and where has it caused drift?

My own instructions are fairly rigid, and I think they need to be. At the same time, I keep wondering whether one of the benefits of using a folder-based structure is that the system should not require every path and action to be spelled out so precisely each time.

How do you decide what must be explicit and what the agent can safely infer from the structure?

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How much freedom do you give the agent?