HELM as Authority Layer — HELM Diagram
HELM as Authority Layer
POSITIONING
ARCHITECTURE
HELM is not an agent, gateway, or IAM. It is the execution authority that sits between company policy and orchestration.
HELM as Authority Layer
A vertical stack of five layers. From top to bottom: Company Policy, HELM (highlighted as the execution authority), Orchestration/Agent Frameworks, LLM/Model Layer, and Tool APIs. HELM sits between policy and execution, checking every proposed action.
[SYS-L-COMP]
Company Policy
Rules, approval chains, risk tiers
[HELM-AUTH-POINT]
HELM — EXECUTION AUTHORITY
Policy check · Identity · Sandbox · Approval · Proof
[SYS-L-ORCH]
Orchestration / Agent Framework
LangChain, CrewAI, Semantic Kernel, custom
[SYS-L-LLM-]
LLM / Model Layer
GPT-4, Claude, Gemini, open-source models
[SYS-L-TOOL]
Tool APIs & Side Effects
Jira, GitHub, Slack, email, database, billing
Proposes
Checks
Enforces
Proof trail
HELM IS NOT:
An agent framework
A gateway / proxy
An IAM system
An observability tool
HELM IS:
Execution authority
Policy enforcement point
Proof producer
Text description
Company Policy
— Rules, approval chains, risk tiers
HELM (Execution Authority)
— Checks policy, identity, sandbox, approval, and proof
Orchestration / Agent Framework
— LangChain, CrewAI, custom agents
LLM / Model Layer
— GPT-4, Claude, Gemini
Tool APIs
— Jira, GitHub, Slack, billing, databases