Human-in-the-loop, not human-blocked

Human-in-the-loop should mean humans own risk and policy—not that every file waits on an inbox. Good designs separate “must review” from “safe to auto-continue” using clear thresholds and sampling.

Queues need SLAs and escalation paths visible to operators, not buried in chat threads. When the system surfaces age and ownership, teams fix process instead of blaming tools.

Measure time-in-queue and rework rate alongside automation rate. If automation pushes work faster into a manual choke point, you have found the next place to redesign—not the script.