The Agentic AI Foundation was built to be the neutral referee for the agentic layer. Then we discovered we'd inherited CNCF's entry bar without CNCF's conditions: a bar designed for a mature industry, applied to a field just over a year old. Our only door admitted work that had already won - while the projects most in need of a neutral home were turned away at exactly the moment governance is cheap to install and expensive to retrofit. This is the story of how we changed the doors: a Sandbox phase, an exit clock, and working groups opened to everyone.
