I would let an AI agent prepare work, but I would not let it cross a consequential boundary without a person approving the exact action. That means a fresh review before it communicates externally, moves money, makes hard-to-reverse changes, changes access or production systems, or expands its task or shares sensitive data somewhere new.
The rule is not that every agent action needs a human. It is that approval should scale with impact, sensitivity, scope, and reversibility. OWASP’s AI Agent Security Cheat Sheet puts the principle plainly: “Require explicit approval for high-impact or irreversible actions.” The five categories below are a practical synthesis, not an official OWASP ranking or a universal threshold. OWASP AI Agent Security Cheat Sheet
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1. Sending or publishing anything externally
Before an agent sends an email, posts publicly, shares a file, or submits information to another service, I would review the destination and the exact content. A message can be difficult to retract, and an attachment or copied detail can expose information the agent was not meant to disclose.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsApproval should show the recipients or audience, message, attachments, and destination—not merely ask whether the agent may “send the email.” OWASP classifies send_email as a high-risk example, while its 2025 guidance describes an agent being manipulated into forwarding sensitive information through indirect prompt injection. These are illustrative classifications and risks, not a claim that every email integration has the same risk. OWASP LLM06:2025 Excessive Agency
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2. Moving money or making a commitment
Require a person to approve transfers, payments, purchases, refunds, and commitments that bind an individual or organization. The review needs to make the consequence legible: who receives the money or commitment, what amount or obligation is involved, and why it is being made.
OWASP uses transfer_funds as an example of a critical action and identifies payment initiation among actions that warrant strong controls. That example supports a conservative approval rule; it does not establish one dollar amount at which approval becomes necessary for every person or organization. OWASP AI Agent Security Cheat Sheet
3. Deleting data or making broad, hard-to-reverse changes
Do not let an agent permanently delete records, apply bulk edits, or make a consequential change to important data without a review of what will be affected and whether recovery is possible. An edit to one draft is different from a change affecting thousands of customer records; the blast radius matters as much as the action type.
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4. Changing access, credentials, or production systems
Require review before an agent grants or changes privileges, modifies security settings, rotates or exposes credentials, or deploys a change to an important system. These actions can expand who or what has power, or affect services beyond the agent’s immediate task.
Approval should identify the affected account, permission, setting, environment, or deployment and the intended scope. OWASP’s guidance calls out administrative and privilege changes; its execution-control recommendations include independently validating scope, privilege, and approval rather than trusting the agent’s own assertion that approval exists. OWASP AI Agent Security Cheat Sheet OWASP Cornucopia
5. Exceeding the task or sharing sensitive data across a boundary
Pause when the proposed action changes the original goal, introduces a new recipient or destination, or follows instructions found in a document, webpage, email, or other external content. Such content can contain malicious instructions that try to redirect the agent. NIST describes this as agent hijacking through indirect prompt injection; its example includes an agent being induced to email files externally and delete the originals. NIST: Strengthening AI Agent Hijacking Evaluations
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For a task to summarize a document, for example, reading and summarizing it is within scope; forwarding its contents to an address embedded in the document is a new action requiring a separate review. OWASP likewise recommends limiting agent capabilities and requiring approval for high-impact actions. OWASP LLM06:2025 Excessive Agency
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What a meaningful second approval includes
A useful approval is a review of one proposed action, not a standing permission the agent can reuse for a different target or changed parameters. The reviewer should see a clear preview of the action and its likely effects before approving it.
- For a message: recipients, full content, attachments, and destination.
- For a payment: recipient, amount, and purpose.
- For a deletion: affected records, scope, and whether recovery is possible.
- For an access or deployment change: target account or system, privilege or change, and environment in scope.
OWASP recommends binding approval to the actor, tool, target resource, normalized parameters, timestamp, and expiry. If a material parameter or target changes after approval, require a new approval. The agent should not approve its own consequential action, and the component that executes it should independently validate the approval and permitted scope. OWASP AI Agent Security Cheat Sheet
Set the threshold by consequence, not by a universal number
There is no single monetary cutoff or approval rule that fits every deployment. A small payment may still be sensitive; a reversible change to one item may need less oversight than a permanent change across many records. Decide based on the action’s reversibility, external visibility, blast radius, data sensitivity, privileges involved, and whether it remains within the approved task.
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