Inspirational Vision Background
The Ideas-to-Life Philosophy

Heuristic-Driven Arbitration

Use a control point to adjust LLM-produced outputs based on deterministic safety signals from other components.

Confidence: high Pattern ID: heuristic-driven-arbitration exploring
Agentic AI Architecture #agentic-ai #control #safety #post-processing #arbitration #guardrails February 15, 2026
Diagram for Heuristic-Driven Arbitration

Intent

Modify LLM outputs based on safety signals from other components.

Context

Used to modify the training plan based on the risk level produced by a guardrail agent. This applies when a downstream LLM output must be overridden or adjusted to comply with safety requirements.

Agentic profile • System shape: unknown • Orchestration mode: unknown

Agent-to-agent interaction • Present: unknown • Mechanism: unknown • Evidence: unknown

Tool protocols • MCP: unknown • Tool calling: unknown • Evidence: unknown

Optimisation target • Primary: unknown • Secondary: unknown • Notes: unknown

Simplicity vs autonomy • Position: unknown • Rationale: unknown

Forces • Safety override • LLM hallucination risk

Solution • Intercept the LLM-generated plan in the orchestrator. • Modify the plan using conditional post-processing based on the risk assessment. • Apply string manipulation to replace intensity-related terms when risk is high.

Implementation signals • Post-processing logic in orchestrator • Conditional modification of agent output

Evidence • src/agents/orchestrator.py#ADKOrchestrator._apply_guardrails_to_plan — Replaces intensity keywords if risk is HIGH

Consequences

Benefits • Enforces safety on final output • Centralized control

Costs • Brittle string manipulation • Coupling between orchestrator and output format

Failure modes • Replacement fails if the LLM changes terminology

Reuse notes • Use with caution; prefer prompting the LLM with constraints over post-hoc string editing. • If used, keep replacement rules small and tightly scoped to known output formats.

Confidence

High — the arbitration method is explicitly referenced as an orchestrator post-processing step tied to a safety signal.

Sources & References

  • Formalising the Pattern Publication System