What is an Automation Governance?

Governance answers questions that pure engineering doesn't: which actions require human sign-off before an automation can take them, who owns an automation when the original builder leaves, how changes to production automations get reviewed, and what happens when an automation's behavior drifts from its intended scope. Without governance, automation sprawl creates shadow processes nobody fully understands or can safely modify. Strong governance scales permissions to risk — a read-only reporting automation needs far less oversight than one that moves money or sends customer-facing communications. It also requires a living inventory: an up-to-date registry of what automations exist, what they touch, and who is accountable for each one, so a governance question can actually be answered rather than investigated from scratch each time.