Long before autonomous software, architects of physical computers faced a similar problem: how to describe what a machine should do without being drowned in the details of how it does it. Barton's 1961 paper on functional design argues that the right design starts with the function — the operation, the transformation, the guarantee — and lets the mechanism follow.
The same discipline applies to autonomous runtimes. A policy is a function: “refund only if identity is verified and the order is unshipped.” A workflow is a function: “exchange an item only through an authorized channel.” The runtime is the mechanism that makes those functions deterministic, auditable, and repeatable.
Original paper
The PDF is embedded below. If your browser does not render it, use the download link.
Reading old design papers is useful not for nostalgia, but for clarity. The problems change; the underlying question — what should this system be responsible for, and how do we prove it did that? — does not.