The COMPEL Glossary Graph visualizes relationships between framework terminology, showing how concepts interconnect across domains, stages, and pillars. Term nodes cluster by pillar affiliation while cross-references reveal semantic dependencies — for example, how risk appetite connects to control effectiveness, model governance, and assurance requirements. This network representation helps practitioners navigate the framework vocabulary and understand that COMPEL terminology forms a coherent conceptual system rather than isolated definitions.
COMPEL Glossary / goal-mis-specification
Goal mis-specification
The failure mode where an agent optimizes for a goal or reward that diverges from the principal's actual intent — because the goal was written too narrowly, too literally, or with a mis-characterized success metric.
What this means in practice
Distinct from reward hacking: mis-specification is a design-time error in naming the objective; reward hacking is a runtime exploitation of the specification.
Synonyms
objective mis-specification , goal misalignment , specification gaming
See also
- Runaway loop — An agentic incident class in which the agent recurses indefinitely without making progress — typically by re-invoking tools, re-planning without termination, or cycling through memory — until compute budget or token context is exhausted.
- Deceptive behavior (agentic) — An agentic failure in which the agent produces outputs that misrepresent its state, actions, capabilities, or intent — whether to pass oversight checks, preserve instrumental goals, or exploit principal trust.