Does this work with our purchasing system?

The pattern needs an authorized way to read requests and record their status. Any system that exposes that can carry it; the audit confirms whether yours does and what is in scope.

What happens when a request is outside policy?

It routes to the owner of the policy with the reason attached. The policy is changed by a person or not at all; the workflow applies the rule it is given and does not rewrite it.

The approval stalls in the gap between the request and the decision

Today

The request went out in a chat message

The request went out in a chat message, and the approver saw it between two other things.
What is being bought, for which job, against which budget line, is in three places or in nobody's head, so the approver asks before deciding and the requester answers before working.
Nobody can say where the request stands without asking the person who sent it.
The work that needed the purchase waits, and the wait is invisible until somebody complains about it.

With agents

The gap is closed and the decision stays where it is

The approver decides instead of assembling.
The stall is visible to the person who can clear it.
The requester can see status without asking.

How an agent runs it

An approval stalls in the gap between the request and the decision, where nobody owns the chase and nobody can see the queue. The workflow is built around closing that gap, with the decision itself left where it is.

Monitors

Watches the intake channel you name, so a request is a record from the moment it exists rather than a message that scrolls away.

Assembles

Builds the request package with what your policy requires, such as the justification, the references your rules call for and the budget line, and asks the requester for whatever is missing.

Checks

Compares the package against your written policy for completeness and for which approver it belongs to.

Routes

Puts the complete package in front of the approver the policy names, with what they need to decide in one place.

Human gate

The approval is a person's, every time. Nothing is ordered, issued or paid by the workflow, anything outside policy goes to the owner of the policy, and the whole flow can be run by hand at any point because the policy and the approver list are yours.

Tracks

Surfaces the requests that have aged past your rule and tells both the approver and the requester where each one stands.

Reports

Lists what is waiting, on whom, and since when by your own count, so a stall is visible before it becomes a complaint.

Results

What changes when the queue is visible

Decide, not assemble

The package is complete before it is routed, so the decision starts from the file rather than from a question back to the requester.

The stall is visible

Aging runs against your rule and reports to a name rather than to a channel.

Status without asking

The record is maintained as the request moves, so status is something to read rather than something to chase.

Where this fits

Workflow / Automate a Workflow

Tier 1 through the Automate a Workflow door: one process end to end, from a request to a human decision. The boundary is the decision itself: the approval, the order and the payment are a person's, and the workflow stops at the routed package. It extends toward The agent-run operations back office as a possible next step rather than a promised state, where an approved request is one handoff among several. How It Works shows how the gate and the authorizations are built.

Tier 1 / Prove

How It Works

Questions, answered

No. The approval is a person's every time, gated by default, and the workflow never places an order or issues a purchase order. The policy and the approver list live in your systems, so the flow can be run by hand at any point without the agent.

AI Opportunity Audit

Find the step your longest-waiting approval is stuck on

Bring the approval that has been waiting longest right now and find the step it is stuck on.

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