AI That Knows When to Ask a Human
Approval gates, edit checkpoints, review steps, and smart escalation. Your agents run autonomously — and pause for human judgment exactly when it matters.
Four Ways Agents Involve Humans
Different situations call for different types of human involvement. OrchStack provides four gate types that cover the full spectrum — from pre-approval to post-execution review.
Approval Gate
Pause & WaitAgent proposes an action. Execution halts until a human explicitly approves or rejects. Used for payments, data changes, and external communications.
Agent drafts a refund of $450 and waits for manager approval before processing.
Edit Gate
Human ModifiesAgent generates output. A human reviews, edits, and confirms the modified version before it is sent or executed.
Agent drafts a customer email. Support lead tweaks the tone and approves.
Review Gate
Post-execution CheckAgent completes the action, then a human reviews the result. Can flag issues, request corrections, or confirm success.
Agent creates a support ticket. QA reviews the classification and priority.
Escalation Gate
Timeout RoutingWhen a gate times out or an error occurs, the task is automatically escalated to a different person, team, or fallback agent.
No approval in 2 hours? Escalate to the VP with a summary of the pending action.
Agent Meets Human, Workflow Continues
A gate is a checkpoint in your agent's workflow. The agent works autonomously until it hits a gate, pauses for human input, then continues with the enriched context.
Agent Executes
Autonomous workflow running
Gate Triggered
Execution pauses
Human Notified
Email, Slack, SMS, Push
Human Responds
Approve, edit, or reject
Workflow Continues
With human-enriched context
Right Person, Right Channel, Right Time
When a gate fires, the right human needs to know immediately. OrchStack sends notifications through the channels your team actually uses — with intelligent routing based on urgency, time of day, and role assignments.
Email Notifications
Rich HTML emails with one-click approve/reject buttons. No login required for simple approvals.
Slack Integration
Interactive Slack messages with action buttons. Approve, reject, or edit directly from the channel.
SMS Alerts
Text message alerts for urgent gates. Reply with A to approve or R to reject. For when Slack is not enough.
In-app Dashboard
A centralized gate queue in the OrchStack dashboard. Filter by status, type, urgency, and assignment.
Pending Gates
4 awaitingConfigurable Timeouts with Smart Escalation
Gates do not block forever. Configurable timeout windows with multi-level escalation ensure your workflows always make progress — even when humans are unavailable.
Timeout Configuration
Fallback Actions
Auto-approve
Proceed with the agent's original proposal. Best for low-risk actions.
Auto-reject
Abort the workflow step. Best for high-risk, irreversible actions.
Escalate
Route to a different person or team with a fresh timeout window.
Fallback Agent
Delegate to an alternative agent designed for edge cases.
Complete Human-in-the-Loop Infrastructure
Everything you need to build agents that collaborate with humans — not replace them.
Approval Gates
Pause agent execution and require explicit human approval before proceeding. Perfect for high-stakes actions like payments, data deletion, or customer-facing communications.
Edit Gates
Let humans modify the agent's proposed output before it is executed. The agent drafts, the human refines. Ideal for content generation, email responses, and reports.
Review Gates
Post-execution review checkpoints. The agent completes the action, then a human reviews the result and can flag issues, request corrections, or approve continuation.
Timeout Handling
Configurable timeouts with escalation rules. If no human responds within the window, the system can auto-approve, auto-reject, escalate to a manager, or route to a fallback agent.
Multi-channel Alerts
Notify the right person via email, Slack, SMS, or push notification. Configurable routing rules based on gate type, urgency, time of day, and team assignments.
Audit Trail
Every gate decision is immutably logged — who was notified, when they responded, what they approved or changed, and the downstream impact. Full compliance traceability.
Human-in-the-Loop FAQ
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