Raltic field guide
How to design an AI agent approval workflow
An approval workflow should control a meaningful transition. It must state what the agent may prepare, what remains unapproved, who can decide, and which external system ultimately enforces the action.
Move from the definition to the operating decision without losing the thread.
Direct answer
An AI agent approval workflow separates agent preparation from authorized action. The agent produces a proposal and evidence packet, the workflow marks it ready for review, an authorized person approves or rejects it, and the destination system enforces any sensitive action through its own permissions. The approval record should preserve who decided, what evidence they saw, and what changed afterward.
Define exactly what is being approved
Approve a specific claim, artifact, change, or external action rather than a vague agent run.
A reviewer cannot evaluate 'the agent completed successfully.' They can evaluate a launch recommendation, a code change, a customer-facing message, or a request to update a connected system.
Write the approval object into the brief and task. This prevents a completion signal from silently expanding into authorization.
- 01The proposed output
- 02The affected users or systems
- 03The permitted next action
- 04The expiration or scope of approval
- 05What remains prohibited
Use risk tiers to avoid approval fatigue
Reserve high-attention approval for impactful, uncertain, or irreversible transitions.
Classify, summarize, and draft can often proceed with sampling and exception review. Publishing, sending, changing production, granting access, or spending money needs stronger authorization.
Risk tiers should consider both impact and reversibility. A small but irreversible disclosure may deserve more review than a larger internal draft.
- 01Tier 1: internal preparation
- 02Tier 2: internal publication or planning decision
- 03Tier 3: customer-facing or production action
- 04Tier 4: regulated, financial, access, or irreversible action
Require an evidence packet before review
The reviewer needs sources, uncertainty, diffs, tests, and affected scope appropriate to the task.
The approval interface should summarize the decision without hiding the underlying evidence. For code, show affected paths and test results. For research, show source dates and contradictions. For outreach, show the basis for targeting and the exact message.
A missing-evidence state should stop or defer approval instead of encouraging the agent to fill gaps with confident language.
- 01Recommendation and alternatives
- 02Source links or artifacts
- 03Known uncertainty
- 04Validation results
- 05Rollback or correction path
Pair workflow approval with destination-system enforcement
The workflow coordinates review; the external system should still enforce who can perform the action.
A review state inside an orchestration platform is valuable evidence, but it should not become the only permission boundary for production, financial, or customer-facing operations. Keep repository protection, CRM permissions, deployment controls, and identity policies active.
After the decision, record the reviewer, outcome, feedback, and resulting action. This creates a useful audit trail and improves the next workflow run.
- 01Authorized reviewer identity
- 02Approval or rejection timestamp
- 03Evidence version reviewed
- 04External action reference
- 05Post-action verification
Primary sources
Product and practice claims in this guide are grounded in current first-party or standards sources. Raltic product claims are limited to shipped behavior described on this site.
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