Nist ai rmf governance

NIST AI RMF Governance

Overview

The NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0) (NIST AI 100-1, January 2023) provides voluntary guidance for trustworthy AI across four core functions:

Function	Purpose	Agent/LLM relevance
GOVERN	Culture, policies, accountability, workforce	AI governance board, agent approval process
MAP	Context, categorization, impacts, benefits/risks	Agent use-case inventory, stakeholder harm analysis
MEASURE	Metrics, evaluation, TEVV, documentation	Redaction FN/FP rates, prompt injection tests, bias evals
MANAGE	Prioritize, respond, recover, communicate	Kill switches, MCP allowlists, incident playbooks

Trustworthy AI characteristics (NIST): valid & reliable, safe, secure & resilient, accountable & transparent, explainable & interpretable, privacy-enhanced, fair with harmful bias managed.

Companion resources: NIST AI RMF Playbook, Generative AI profile (NIST AI 600-1), cross-walk to NIST CSF 2.0 (nist-csf-2-assessment).

This skill is the primary AI-specific governance path for compliance-agent-skills deployments.

When to Use

Use this skill when:

• Deploying or auditing LLM agents, MCP servers, or GenAI in regulated workflows
• Building AI governance policies (acceptable use, human oversight, model selection)
• Mapping AI risks for compliance agents processing PHI, PCI, or PII
• TEVV (test, evaluation, verification, validation) for agent outputs and tool calls
• Executive/board AI risk reporting using NIST taxonomy
• Harmonizing with SOC 2 (CC8 change, CC7 monitoring) and ISO 27001 for AI systems
• Customer AI due diligence questionnaires (NIST AI RMF, SOC 2 + AI addendum)

Do not use this skill when:

• Pure infrastructure security with no AI/ML (use nist-csf-2-assessment)
• PHI redaction tuning only (use hipaa-phi-redaction-pipeline)
• Children's data FTC rules (use coppa-children-privacy)
• Student education records (use ferpa-education-records)

Core Process

Execute steps in order.

Step 1: GOVERN — AI accountability structure

1. Document AI system inventory: agents, models, MCP tools, embeddings, fine-tunes.
2. Assign roles: executive sponsor, AI risk owner, legal/privacy, security, domain experts.
3. Policies required:
   • Acceptable use for LLM prompts (no raw PHI/PAN without redaction)
   • Human-in-the-loop for high-impact decisions
   • Model/vendor change management (CC8.1 alignment)
4. Artifact: AI governance charter + RACI matrix.

Step 2: MAP — Context and risk framing

1. For each agent use case document:
   • Intended purpose and context of use
   • Actors: users, subjects, operators, third parties (LLM vendor)
   • Data types: ePHI, PI, CHD, CUI, public
   • Benefits and potential harms (individual, group, societal)
2. Categorize risk tier (low / moderate / high) based on autonomy, data sensitivity, reversibility.
3. Map dependencies: agent.py redaction gate, mcp-compliance-integration, vendor BAAs/DPAs.
4. Populate templates/nist-ai-rmf-profile.yaml MAP section.

Step 3: MAP — Impacts and likelihood

1. Identify failure modes:
   • Hallucinated regulatory citations (using-compliance-agent-skills anti-patterns)
   • Prompt injection via MCP tools
   • Deanonymization without authorization (agent.py opt-in)
   • Tool over-permission (Postgres MCP write access)
2. Document trustworthiness gaps per NIST characteristics.
3. Cross-reference loaded skills — agent must not invent controls.

Step 4: MEASURE — Metrics and TEVV

1. Define measurable metrics:

   Metric	Example target
   Redaction false negative rate	0% on SSN in test corpus
   Skill routing accuracy	100% framework match on test prompts
   Unauthorized tool call rate	0 in audit mode
   Human override rate	Tracked for high-tier use cases

2. TEVV plan:
   • Pre-deployment: compliance_tests/ corpus, adversarial prompts
   • Production: CCM alerts on deanonymize flag, MCP anomaly detection
3. Document evaluation datasets — synthetic only in CI; no production PHI.
4. Populate MEASURE section in AI RMF profile template.

Step 5: MEASURE — Documentation and transparency

1. Model cards / system cards for agent stack: base model, skills loaded, redaction profile, MCP tools.
2. User-facing disclosure when interacting with AI agent (FTC/state AI transparency trends).
3. Log retention for audit — align audit-logging-integrity.

Step 6: MANAGE — Risk treatment

1. Prioritize risks by tier and exploitability.
2. Controls (map to repo capabilities):
   • Technical: Presidio balanced profile, MCP OAuth, audit mode hooks
   • Process: /scope before /audit, one primary skill per thread
   • Human: Privacy officer sign-off on breach-tier agent outputs
3. Residual risk acceptance with executive sign-off for high-tier deployments.

Step 7: MANAGE — Continuous monitoring and incidents

1. Integrate with soc2-ccm-continuous-monitoring for drift detection.
2. AI-specific incidents: model behavior change, vendor breach, jailbreak — route to breach-incident-response.
3. Change management when adding skills, MCP servers, or model versions — re-run MAP/MEASURE delta.

Step 8: Profile completion and roadmap

1. Complete Current vs Target profile in templates/nist-ai-rmf-profile.yaml.
2. 12-month improvement plan with owners.
3. Cross-walk high-priority controls to NIST CSF 2.0 subcategories for unified reporting.

Common Rationalizations

Excuse	Rebuttal
"We're just wrapping GPT—no AI risk."	Agent orchestration with tools and regulated data is in scope for AI RMF GOVERN/MAP.
"CSF 2.0 covers everything."	CSF addresses cyber; AI RMF adds TEVV, bias, transparency, GenAI failures not in CSF alone.
"Vendor's AI ethics statement is enough."	Accountability stays with deployer—document MAP and MEASURE for your agent configuration.
"Redaction solves AI privacy."	Redaction supports privacy-enhanced AI but does not address validity, safety, or explainability.
"No metrics—we'll eyeball outputs."	AI RMF MEASURE requires documented TEVV—use test corpus and routing validation.

Red Flags

• Production agent without AI use-case inventory or risk tier
• MCP tools with write access and no human oversight on high-tier flows
• No TEVV before adding new framework skills to production
• Deanonymization enabled globally in EU or HIPAA paths
• Model version changes without change-management record
• Customer-facing agent with no disclosure of automated assistance

Verification

• GOVERN: AI inventory, RACI, and acceptable-use policy documented
• MAP: Use cases with harms, data types, and risk tiers completed
• MEASURE: Metrics and TEVV plan with synthetic test corpus referenced
• MEASURE: System/model card for agent stack published internally
• MANAGE: Risk treatment and residual risk sign-off for high-tier cases
• MANAGE: CCM and incident hooks integrated for AI-specific events
• AI RMF profile template completed with Current/Target states
• Cross-walk to NIST CSF 2.0 documented where required