An Interruption Point is a defined location in an agentic workflow where execution pauses to wait for human input or review.
Optimal Placement
- Before Irreversible Actions: Critical for preventing uncorrectable errors.
- Phase Boundaries: Natural points where agent scope or authority shifts.
- On Anomaly Detection: When unexpected inputs or behaviors are identified.
Implementation Principles
- State Preservation: Persist task progress and decision branches to external storage (not in-context) to ensure resumption is possible.
- Structured Handoff: Messages must provide Context, the specific Decision required, the Consequence of the decision, and a Deadline.
- Async Handling: If escalation is asynchronous, the agent must define a timeout threshold and action (abort/fallback) to avoid silent hangs.