Before you take your hands off the wheel

An agent is just an AI that can do stuff.A 9am Slack sweep counts.

Describe the chore in plain English and the automations panel takes it as written — no field mapping, no connectors. The harder question is whether it should run without you watching, so this one refuses to say ready until it is.

Start The other two tools

Every weekday at 9:00

Sweep #brand-deals, update the database

One toggle. The hard part was never the wiring.

What an agent actually looks like

Red blockers stop the lever outright. Grey gaps only mean it will guess.

The chore, as you’d tell a colleague

How often

Where the result lands

What it reads

Which source wins

Rules and exceptions you already know

When it’s done

Never on its own

The payouts sweep is ours, built from Cat’s accounts-receivable example. The two rules about the brand partner and the transfers are her words. The risky one is ours.

Automation panelNot yet

Can do something
I can’t undo

A person checks
the result

0Clean runs
by hand

Schedule itNot yetRun it manually at least twice and check the output. Only after it is right time and time again do you take your eye off it.Locked

Spelled out: earnedDescribed, cadence, sources
Checked in: earnedSource of truth, reporting
Safe hands: not yetThe three red blockers

Fix this first

Run it manually at least twice and check the output. Only after it is right time and time again do you take your eye off it.

Spelled out

Done: The job is described concretelygap
Done: It has a cadencegap
Done: It can reach what it readsgap

Checked in

Done: A source of truth is namedgap
Done: It reports somewhere you will seegap

Safe hands

Done: Nothing irreversible happens without youblocker
Done: A human checks the workblocker
Not yet: You have run it by hand and it was rightblockerRun it manually at least twice and check the output. Only after it is right time and time again do you take your eye off it.

The recipe · paste it into the automations panel

Every Monday at 9am, match the payouts database against this week's bank-statement export and list which sponsor payments are coming and which are late.

Read from a bank statement export and a Notion database.

Put the result in a Slack DM to me.

If two sources disagree, the bank is the source of truth.

Rules and exceptions:
Payouts from this brand partner go in this bucket.
Don't factor in external transfers, those are just moving between my accounts.

Never do any of the following on your own — ask me first: move money and message a client.

When you are done, send me a Slack message with which payments are coming and which are late.

If you are not sure about a row, leave it alone and flag it rather than guessing.

Also from this episode

Two more.Same conversation.