A team is building an agentic system where Claude autonomously executes multi-step workflows including sending emails, modifying database records, and calling external APIs. A senior architect raises concerns about the safety profile. What architectural principle should govern this design?

Anthropic's guidance for agentic systems emphasizes minimal footprint: Claude should only request permissions needed for the current task, prefer reversible operations over irreversible ones, avoid acquiring resources or capabilities beyond immediate needs, and pause to confirm with users before consequential actions. This balances autonomy with safety. Option A is partially correct (focusing on irreversible actions) but too permissive — 'reversible' is context-dependent, and read operations can have privacy implications. Option B (all actions require approval) defeats the purpose of automation and makes the system impractical; the architecture must enable useful autonomy while containing risk. Option D is insufficient as an architectural safeguard — Constitutional AI reduces harmful outputs but doesn't replace architectural controls for agentic side effects; both are necessary.