Separating planning from execution in agent workflows

Keep proposed work separate from verified results

Represent the plan as intended steps and execution as observed outcomes. Each completed step should have evidence from the relevant tool or system. An agent's statement that it will update a record is not evidence that the record changed. Keep this distinction in both internal state and user-facing progress reports.

Worked example

Illustrative scenario; not a claim of measured client results.

A plan may say inspect ten pages, revise three and publish the changes. The execution record should identify which pages were actually read, which files changed and which public responses were verified. If publishing fails, the report should describe prepared changes rather than claim the website was updated. This allows a later continuation to resume the right stage.

Checks, limitations and next decisions

When plans change, preserve the current objective and retire obsolete steps explicitly. Do not let an earlier proposed action remain marked as completed merely because the agent moved on. Test the final state against the user's intended outcome. Clear separation helps prevent confident completion reports that are based on a plausible narrative instead of confirmed work.

A practical starting point

Work through these checks in order. Use the results to decide what needs to change in your own workflow.

1. Represent planned steps and completed actions separately.
2. Validate prerequisites immediately before consequential actions.
3. Update status only from confirmed outcomes.

A mistake to avoid

Do not mark a task complete because the final instruction was issued.

How to check progress

Audit differences between intended actions and verified external state.