Which reports can it run?

Any report whose sources expose an authorized way to read them and whose definition can be written down: sources, cadence, format, recipients and thresholds. The audit confirms which of yours qualify and which to define first.

What is a routine, as opposed to a project?

A routine is a recurring process defined once and governed on every cycle; a project has an end. The distinction has its own page, and this page describes the report routine only.

Each cycle starts as if the report were new

Today

Due on a date only one person remembers

The report is due on a date only one person remembers.
The rebuild starts from last month's file, with the sources re-pulled by hand and the formatting redone, and a number changes that nobody can explain because nobody can say which pull it came from.
A version goes out before anyone has looked at it, and the correction goes out after.
Each cycle starts as if the report were new.

With agents

Defined once, instantiated every cycle, seen by its owner before it goes anywhere

The report is due whether or not anyone remembers.
What moved is shown rather than hunted for.
Nothing circulates unseen.

How an agent runs it

A recurring report is defined once and instantiated every cycle, which is the whole mechanism. The workflow holds the definition, builds each instance from it, shows what moved, and puts every instance in front of its owner before it goes anywhere.

Holds

Keeps the report definition you wrote once: the sources, the cadence, the format, the recipients and the thresholds.

Instantiates

On each cycle, builds the report from the records you authorize, in the format the definition names.

Compares

Checks the instance against the prior cycle, figure by figure.

Flags

Names what moved past the thresholds you set, and any figure it could not trace to a source row.

Human gate

Routes every instance to the report owner for sign-off before it is distributed or used. Nothing goes to a recipient and no decision is taken on the report's content without a person, the definition is changed only by its owner, and the report can be built by hand at any point because the definition and the records are yours.

Distributes

Sends the signed-off instance to the recipients in the definition, and only those, only after sign-off.

Proposes

When the same manual edit recurs across cycles, drafts a change to the definition for the owner to accept or reject.

Results

What changes when the definition does the remembering

Due whether or not anyone remembers

The cadence is in the definition and each cycle instantiates from it, so the due date is a property of the routine rather than of a person's memory.

What moved is shown, not hunted

Each instance is compared to the prior cycle before it is routed, so the owner opens a delta rather than a blank comparison.

Nothing circulates unseen

Sign-off by the owner is the gate on every cycle, and distribution is a step that follows it rather than a step that races it.

Where this fits

Workflow / Automate a Workflow

Tier 1 through the Automate a Workflow door: one process, the routine, from a definition to a signed-off instance. The boundary is that the definition, the sign-off and every decision the report informs are a person's; the routine carries any report whose content has its own page, such as Job and project status reporting, continuously. It extends toward The agent-run operations back office, where every scheduled report runs this way, as a possible next step rather than a promised state. How It Works covers governed routines and their gates, and Plans vs routines: finite projects and recurring processes, governed differently covers how a routine differs from a plan.

Tier 1 / Prove

How It Works

Questions, answered

No. Every cycle is signed off by the owner before it is distributed or used, distribution is gated by default and opens only on your decision, and no operational action is taken on the report's content by the workflow. The definition and the records live in your systems, so the report can be built by hand at any point without the agent.

AI Opportunity Audit

See how much of it is already written down

Bring the recurring report that was late most recently, and its definition if one exists, and see how much of it is already written down.

Book an audit