# Human in the loop

URL: https://www.getdynamiq.ai/glossary/human-in-the-loop

> A design pattern where a person reviews, confirms or supplies information at a defined point in an otherwise automated process.

A design pattern where a person reviews, confirms or supplies information at a defined point in an otherwise automated process.

Human in the loop covers two shapes of the same idea. In one, the agent itself decides, based on its instructions, that it needs to ask a person something, a clarifying question, a confirmation, before it continues. In the other, a specific step is set up so that it always pauses for a person, regardless of what the agent decides, the stricter pattern usually called an approval gate.

Regulated processes typically require a named, accountable person at specific points in a decision, and human in the loop is how that accountability gets built into the system's design rather than assumed after the fact.

An agent drafts a client communication and asks a person to confirm the intent is right before it proceeds, and a separate, mandatory gate still holds the final send step regardless of that earlier confirmation.

**In Dynamiq**, a Human Feedback tool lets an agent ask a question and wait for a reply, or send a status update without waiting, while execution approval on a node pauses that node every time it is about to run. Both pause the run, surface the prompt over a live connection, and resume, sometimes minutes or days later, from a checkpoint the moment a reply arrives.

## See it in Dynamiq

-   [Guardrails and approvals](https://www.getdynamiq.ai/product/guardrails)
-   [AI agent governance](https://www.getdynamiq.ai/use-cases/ai-agent-governance)

## Related terms

-   [Approval gate](https://www.getdynamiq.ai/glossary/approval-gate)
-   [AI guardrails](https://www.getdynamiq.ai/glossary/ai-guardrails)
-   [Agentic workflow](https://www.getdynamiq.ai/glossary/agentic-workflow)
-   [AI governance](https://www.getdynamiq.ai/glossary/ai-governance)

## See an agent on your own workflow.

Bring a process and its documents. Our engineers will show you how Dynamiq runs it, in your environment or ours.

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