The Semi-Manual to Automated FDE Approach

yangyi · x · 2026-07-17

This post discusses an **FDE (Forward Deployed Engineer)** implementation sequence: **semi-manual first, then validation, and finally automation**. The core idea is to avoid fully automating a workflow from day one. Instead, run a basic, semi-manual process in a live business environment for a month to verify feasibility. Next, spend two months validating the loop's effectiveness. Only then should you productize the workflow into a SaaS or CLI for Agent automation, while accumulating data and adding visualization to mitigate hallucination risks. The author emphasizes that confirming a workflow's viability requires seeing **three aligned positive signals**; a single success doesn't prove a systemic advantage.

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