Approvals and oversight

Approval is a business decision with an owner and an evidence requirement. Define it while designing the workflow, so agents and reviewers know when work may proceed and when it must wait.

Set approval boundaries#

Identify the actions, thresholds, and exceptions that need a person. Examples can include external communication, changes to sensitive records, ambiguous policy interpretation, or commitments outside an agent's role. The exact rules depend on the workflow.

Name who can decide and who takes over when that person is unavailable. Define whether the agent may prepare a draft while waiting and which further actions remain blocked.

Make the review actionable#

A reviewer should be able to understand:

1. The proposed action and the record it affects.
2. The relevant sources and any unresolved assumptions.
3. The expected change or side effect.
4. The policy or scope boundary that requires review.
5. The next step if the action is accepted, declined, or needs revision.

Agree on the approval channel and how the decision is recorded during deployment. Do not assume that a conversational acknowledgement grants the formal approval a workflow requires.

Handle exceptions deliberately#

Specify how the workflow responds to missing context, denied access, conflicting records, and failed or uncertain system actions. The reviewer needs to know which work has already completed before deciding how to recover.

When the result of an action is unknown, verify the system state before requesting it again. If new information changes the proposed action, determine whether the original approval still applies.

Review the operating pattern#

Repeated escalations can indicate unclear scope, missing context, or an approval rule that needs refinement. Review the evidence with the business owner and make controlled changes through the Agent lifecycle.

Human oversight should remain connected to real decision points. Track the outcome and unresolved work, rather than treating a completed approval step as proof that the entire workflow succeeded.