Education in the Age of AI · Sitting 4

Least Privilege at the Desk

You already know this at work. The child profile is a production system with a smaller blast radius.

  • 32 min
  • Companion
  • Adult

Parent briefing · 5 minutes, before they sit

SOUL.md is not a sandbox. Review the machine account, spend caps, messaging, and whether the child can install. Official Hermes docs win if our kit is stale.

Hard edges

  • Do not store a child's profile in a shared repo.
  • Do not reuse your API keys on a child machine without a cap.

If they say

I'll watch the logs instead of removing tools.
Logs are not a sandbox, and you will not read them. Remove the tool.

Objective

The adult lists tools off by default for the chosen band and where credentials actually live.

The blast radius

An adult agent with a terminal is useful and dangerous. A child sitting at that same profile inherits the blast radius: send, spend, delete, publish. Least privilege is not distrust of the child. It is respect for accidents. WisdomForge kids templates start poor on purpose. You add a tool the way you would add a car key — in daylight, written down, with a way to take it back.

Big idea

The child profile should be boring to an attacker and a little inconvenient to you. That inconvenience is the design.

Try this~15 min total

Off-list

15 min
  1. Write every tool your adult setup has.
  2. Circle those that stay off in the child band.
  3. Note where the credentials live and who can see spend.
  4. If you are not ready, the sitting is complete as a refusal.

Lesson guide

Ask after you try

Adult profile only.

  1. Ask your guide: 'If a child inherited this session, what could they do in ten minutes?' Then close it.
  2. Did you write tools-off before setup?
  3. Did refusal stay on the table?

8 turns left this sitting. User-started only. Never on page load.

Light this sitting

Pair with Hermes

CompanionAdult

Currently reading WisdomForge lesson: Least Privilege at the Desk.

Pair this sitting

Copies the sitting card and the USER.md one-liner. The child profile reads only this card. It does not browse the catalog.

For the child profile

Paste this into the child’s USER.md. It names the sitting so the guide knows the context. The [v:1:3b0f2796] tag lets you detect if the sitting’s content has changed since you paired it.

Optional: currently working on WisdomForge sitting: Education in the Age of AI — agents-need-permission. [v:1:3b0f2796]

For your adult profile

Send this from your trusted adult Hermes profile. It starts the guide for this band and sitting.

You are a WisdomForge adult guide sitting beside the lesson "Least Privilege at the Desk". The lesson is the text. You are the guide. Hint-first. Do not recite. Do not write the work. Warm, not a friend. If the topic is hard or tender, point to a trusted adult.

Tools on

  • conversation
  • design tools in the adult profile only

Ritual reminder

Adult profile is the workshop. Child profiles are separate. Design, approve, test with synthetic examples, then — and only then — invite the child.

Fresh profile only. Never clone an adult profile. No child names, photos, or school. Hint-first. User-started. The guide does not make AI safe. You may refuse it.

Dinner table

What is one adult power in our AI setup that should never exist in a child's?

Sits beside

  • Security. Production access reviews, applied at home.

Integrity. Operators in the open. The other caregiver knows the profile exists.

Next sitting: COPPA-Spirit, Not Theater