Lessons from giving agents write access: risky actions need approval, not review
Similar_Confusion534 · reddit · 2026-10-28
A Conecto founder shares lessons from letting agents write to CRMs, invoices, and calendars across 580+ tools:
- Put the price in the tool description: every tool states its cost, every call returns cost and remaining balance, and agents can total up a job before starting.
- Retries must be safe: all calls take an idempotency key so timeouts don't cause double billing.
- Approval beats review: risky actions (editing HubSpot/Salesforce records, canceling meetings, replacing files) default to waiting for owner approval with old/new values shown; thresholds can trigger approval, and the caller can never self-approve.
- Budgets as the safety net: default caps of $20/day and $100/month stop rogue loops from draining accounts.
Unsolved: gray-zone actions like rescheduling — what counts as risky varies by business, so human-in-the-loop stays opt-in.
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