Choose a workflow before a model
Write down who uses the system, what decision or task changes, the current baseline and the cost of an incorrect answer. If a person cannot explain the process or verify an output, the use case is not ready for autonomous execution.
Bound agent behavior
Give tools the smallest permissions needed. Separate read, draft and execute actions. Require explicit human approval for financial, employment, customer-impacting, security-sensitive or difficult-to-reverse decisions. Design stop conditions, timeouts, rate limits and fallbacks.
Test and operate the full system
Evaluate retrieval, model output, tool selection, policy enforcement, latency and cost together. Test prompt injection, sensitive-data leakage, unsafe actions, ambiguous requests and unavailable dependencies. Version prompts, models, tools and evaluation sets.
Measure accepted outcomes
Compare against a baseline using quality, completion, time, escalation and rework. Track human overrides and exceptions. A model response rate or demo success is not an operational outcome.
Use the sequence as a discussion aid.
- 01Frame task, user, baseline and consequence.
- 02Map data rights, system dependencies and action authority.
- 03Prototype read-only or draft-only; test representative and adversarial cases.
- 04Gate production on named owner, monitoring, rollback and incident procedure.
- 05Review changes, quality and cost continuously.
- NIST AI RMF and Generative AI Profile ↗
- OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications 2025 ↗
- EY GCC Pulse Survey 2025 ↗
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