Definition
Plain language
How far the damage would spread if an action goes wrong.
As stated in the literature
The scope of systems, data, or users affected by a mistaken or malicious operation; over-broad permissions and control-plane actions increase it, and it appears as an explicit hazard dial in agent-safety benchmarks like UnderSpecBench.
Why it matters: It captures how much damage a single wrong action can cause, so limiting an agent's permissions keeps mistakes from spreading across an entire system.
For example, deleting one customer's record has a tiny blast radius, but wiping the shared database everyone depends on has an enormous one.
Heard on the show
“And the reason that's more than wastefulness is the blast radius.”Episode 190 — The Skill Every AI Manager Is Missing: Handing Out Exactly the Right Keys