Define a task someone can own.
Identify the trigger, expected output, accountable person and conditions under which the task must pause. Record where judgement, safety, money or customer commitments enter the process.
ARCHITECTURE / A SYSTEM WITH BOUNDARIES
Connect the layers.
Clarify the decisions.
An agent is part of an operating system of people, information and permissions—not its substitute.
Make context inspectable.
Define approved sources and their access rules. Include the source, time and version with retrieved material. Missing or contradictory evidence is a reason to ask, not an invitation to invent.
Task memory needs ownership, correction and deletion rules. Treat untrusted documents as information, never as permission to change tools or policy.
Use the environment the work requires.
Device and edge
Consider constrained local tasks, device protection, model fit and explicitly configured offline behaviour. Edge placement alone does not make data secure.
Private environment
Evaluate controlled compute, approved retrieval and identity boundaries. Confirm logs, backups, storage and connector locations as well as inference.
Controlled hybrid
Review each external route. Minimise information, check provider terms and retention, and require an explicit decision before restricted data crosses a boundary.
Separate the draft from the consequence.
Read access, proposal generation, approval and system writes are distinct capabilities. Use scoped credentials, validated inputs and an authorised connector. A model’s confident answer is not a grant of authority.
Design the stop before the launch.
Define what happens when a dependency fails, a source is unavailable or a write cannot be confirmed. Preserve a reviewable state, avoid duplicate actions and assign the next owner. Offline queues need deliberate local protection, reconciliation and conflict handling.
Measure the whole workflow.
Compare representative tasks against the current process. Include answer quality, correction effort, exceptions, recovery, completion time and operating cost. Test difficult cases and re-evaluate after changes to models, tools or source material.