MSBAi Knowledge Base — Allowlist, Roles & Access
Authorized senders for the MSBAi knowledge base bot (msbai@illinihunt.org and @MSBAiBot Telegram), with their access tier, role/domain, and the gatekeeping routing. This file is the single source of truth for who has access, at what tier, and in what role. This is the pilot group for the current phase.
What is actually enforced by code vs. documented intent:
- ✅ Enforced: the allow/deny in the table below —
src/channels/webhook.tsreads the emails (closed-mode). Senders not in the table are not processed; a non-allowlisted@illinois.edusender gets a one-time courteous “limited pilot” reply (since 2026-05-30), non-UIUC/unknown drop silently. Telegram: only the handles in the Telegram table reach @MSBAiBot. Edits take effect within 5 minutes (no restart).- 📋 Documentation / policy, NOT yet code-enforced: the
Accesstier (read-write vs read-only), theRole / domaincolumn, and the Gatekeeping routing section below. Read-only is currently soft (an agent prompt instruction for the observers); the two-stage gate runs as a convention (makers propose, the domain owner reviews), not code. Hard enforcement is future work — seedocs/process-architecture-audit.md§J for the rationale + mechanism.
Authorized Senders (pilot group)
| Name | Title | Access | Role / domain (gatekeeping) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vishal Sachdev | vishal@illinois.edu | Clinical Associate Professor | read-write | Program Director / academic director — content & academic vision; Faculty (BADM 554) · gate approver: content |
| Maria A. Rodas | mrodas@illinois.edu | Academic Director, Graduate Programs | read-write | Structure: sequencing, prep pathways, cross-program · gate approver: structure |
| Ravi Prakash Mehta | mehtar@illinois.edu | Associate Dean of Graduate Programs | read-write | Governance / decisions · gate approver: governance (escalation) |
| Amber E. Glynn | aglynn1@illinois.edu | Senior Associate Director of Residential Graduate Degrees | read-write | Operations / KB-feeding |
| Heather R. Aldridge | hfletch@illinois.edu | Senior Associate Director of iDegrees | read-write | Onboarding ops |
| Lindsey Savoie Halfar | lsavoie@illinois.edu | Director of Marketing | read-write | Marketing & comms (own lane) |
| Micaela Childress | mmc5@illinois.edu | Student Services (Heather’s team) | read-only | Testing-group tester (added 2026-06-12, Vishal — plan-and-test meeting). Any updates she sends route through Heather Aldridge (hfletch), who retains full update rights and student-services oversight. Identity note: meeting notes say “Michaela”; matched to Micaela Childress from the 2026-06-11 Essentials-tools thread — verify spelling/person at first contact |
| Emily A. Ziegler | ekrickl@illinois.edu | Director of Residential Degrees | read-write | Residential degrees |
| Kacie J. Jones | wilson34@illinois.edu | Director of Graduate Recruiting and Admissions | read-write | Admissions & recruiting (own lane) |
| Jason Mock | jmock@illinois.edu | Senior Director of Teaching & Learning Strategy | read-write | T&L; Learning Design (Cheng Li / Eric French) ladders up through him |
| Lorena K. Nicholas | lorenan@illinois.edu | Senior Director of Graduate Programs | read-write | Grad programs / official-status confirmations |
| Ronald Nathan Guymon | rnguymon@illinois.edu | Senior Lecturer of Accountancy | read-write | Faculty (BDI 513) — course content |
| Ashish Khandelwal | ashishk@illinois.edu | Faculty (BADM 558) | read-write | Faculty (BADM 558) — course content; plan-and-test pilot group (added 2026-06-10, Vishal) |
| William Ocasio | wocasio@illinois.edu | James F. Towey Professor of BA | read-only | Research observer (Gies AI-strategy study) |
| E. Geoffrey Love | glove@illinois.edu | Associate Professor of BA | read-only | Research observer (Gies AI-strategy study) |
Note: three people use NetIDs from a previous surname — Heather Aldridge (hfletch), Emily Ziegler (ekrickl), Kacie Jones (wilson34). Confirmed from official Gies profile pages. Ashish Khandelwal’s address confirmed from his 2026-05-21 email header.
Pilot restructure in progress (2026-06-10): the new plan-and-test group is Vishal Sachdev, Amber E. Glynn, Maria A. Rodas, Ashish Khandelwal, Emily A. Ziegler (from the Friday 2 PM meeting invite). It replaces the prior 8-person testing group for planning purposes; a separate test-only cohort will be named by Vishal later. Until that list lands, existing members keep access — do not remove anyone yet.
Observer context: W. Ocasio and G. Love are observers for a Gies AI-strategy research study on governance and orchestration; MSBAi×K-ai coordination is a living embodiment of that strategy. Read-only access (soft-enforced via the email-group prompt for now).
Gatekeeping routing (policy — convention now, not yet code-enforced)
Two-stage maker-checker on the source of truth (program/curriculum.md + discussions/DECISIONS.md). Routine writes (ACTION_ITEMS, course files, Box autosync) commit directly. A source-of-truth change should be proposed and approved by the domain owner before it lands (target mechanism: a PR the owner merges — see audit §J.3). Today this runs as a convention, not code.
| Source-of-truth change about… | Approver |
|---|---|
| Course content, CLOs, academic vision | Vishal (content) |
| Sequencing, prep pathways, credits, program structure | Maria (structure) — Vishal fallback while ramping |
| Program governance / high-level calls | Ravi (escalation) — usually via Vishal |
Rule: maker ≠ checker. Amber and the agent are the dominant makers; their SoT proposals route to the domain owner above; they never self-approve. Read-only senders (observers) never propose or approve.
When the agent routes a SoT change to kb-triage, it CCs the domain approver on its reply to the sender; if the sender is that approver, it CCs the fallback (Vishal) / escalation (Ravi).
Telegram Handles
| Name | Telegram Username |
|---|---|
| Vishal Sachdev | @Svishal2001 |
| Ronald Nathan Guymon | @RonGuymon |
Phone on file for Ron: 770-309-9523 (provided 2026-04-16 for verification purposes).
Notes
- Pilot scope (2026-05-30): access was narrowed to the pilot group above. Previously-authorized people not in this group no longer have access; if they email from
@illinois.edu, K-ai sends the one-time “limited pilot” reply pointing them to Vishal. - To add/remove someone or change a tier/role, edit this file (it’s the single source of truth) and notify Vishal. The allow/deny takes effect within 5 minutes automatically; tier/role/gate changes are documentation until the corresponding enforcement is built.
msbai@illinihunt.orgitself is always allowed (internal use).- Telegram allowlist enforcement is active — only the handles above reach @MSBAiBot; all other DMs (and senders with no username) are silently dropped.
Created: 2026-03-15. Pilot group + roles/access consolidated here 2026-05-30. Emails sourced from Gies faculty/staff directory.