Give Agent Workflows a Clear Way to Pause

An AI workflow needs a recovery plan for the moment a tool fails, permission is missing, or the result looks uncertain—not just a plan for the happy path.

For one workflow, define a safe pause point:

• What should the agent stop doing when a tool call fails or approval is unavailable?
• What information should be saved so the work can resume without starting over?
• Who owns the next step, and what manual fallback keeps the service moving?

Try the handoff with a simulated failure before expanding the workflow. The goal is not to automate every exception; it is to keep a small failure from becoming a hidden burden for whoever is on call. If recovery relies on someone noticing an alert and improvising, that person is already part of the design.