Agentic AI breaks the human-in-the-loop model of traditional code completion by enabling agents to write, push, and deploy changes autonomously. This creates new governance challenges around identity, permissions, and auditability. A practical framework is outlined covering: defining what agents are allowed to do via role-based permissions and tool approval guardrails, handling data residency concerns (including self-hosting and bring-your-own-model options), establishing human review checkpoints for code review, testing, and deployment, and tracking five key metrics — adoption, acceptance/quality, risk, remediation, and ROI — together to avoid hidden risk accumulation. A checklist for teams standardizing on GitLab Duo Agent Platform is also provided, emphasizing that governance must be built into the platform rather than added afterward.
