# Plan Non-Technical Work Loops with AI Agents

A practical method for turning business and knowledge-work processes into bounded, evidence-driven feedback loops without giving agents implied authority.

Published: 2026-07-15
Canonical: https://darrylwong.me/posts/plan-non-technical-work-loops-ai-agents
Topics: Agentic Workflows, Business Operations, Workflow Design

## Repetition is not enough

A genuine loop uses evidence from one pass to change what happens next. If feedback cannot influence a later action, the process is better described as a task, checklist, pipeline, or recurring cycle.

The planning question is not how to automate repetition. It is whether the work has an observable signal, an evaluation rule, a permitted adjustment, and a meaningful way to pass, fail, stop, block, or escalate.

## Define the smallest useful loop

Start with one business outcome and one accountable human owner. Map the current workflow, its evidence, existing feedback points, rework, exceptions, approvals, and handoffs before selecting a loop type.

The loop should state its trigger, entry criteria, actions, evidence, evaluation rules, feedback path, permitted adjustments, bounds, stop conditions, escalation, and handoff. Stable preparation can sit before it, and deterministic handoff work can sit after it.

## Separate preparation from authority

Agent capabilities should be separated into inspect, analyze, recommend, prepare, approve, execute, and verify. Permission to inspect or draft does not imply permission to approve a decision, contact a client, spend money, alter records, or take an externally binding action.

Consequential, regulated, subjective, irreversible, or high-impact actions need explicit human approval. Iterations should also be bounded by time, attempts, cost, scope, materiality, and confidence so the loop cannot continue without control.

## Pilot before automation

Simulate normal, failed, blocked, contradictory, and boundary cases before testing the loop on real work. Then run a small, reversible, human-supervised pilot and retain the evidence, decisions, changes, unresolved issues, owner, status, and next action.

A client-information workflow is a useful example: inspect received evidence, classify each requirement, prepare a targeted follow-up, and repeat until the pack is complete, accepted with documented limits, timed out, or escalated. The feedback is useful, but external communication and material exceptions remain with the engagement owner.

## Sources

- [Read the living planning guide](https://gist.github.com/oruenboi/81b1d5f1e03bb41bce0f6dfdc7481b40)