AI Systems Atlas

H-12Human-in-the-loop

/harnesses/human-in-the-loop

The agent proposes; a gate routes risky actions to a human who approves or denies before execution.

Step-by-step walkthrough5 steps
  1. The agent proposes — it does not execute.
  2. The gate classifies the action. Irreversible + broad = risky.
  3. Risky actions escalate to a human with full context.
  4. Approved → the action runs exactly as reviewed.
  5. Or: denied with a reason the agent can use to replan.
Key insight

Put the human at the decision, not in the loop’s hot path: gate on irreversibility and blast radius, and let everything else flow.

Failure mode

Approval fatigue: gate too much and humans rubber-stamp; the checkpoint remains, the checking stops.

Further reading
RelatedAgent securityEvent-driven agentPermission policies

Elsewhere in the atlas

Security →Evals →Context →Coding Agents →Tools →Ops →