Oversight in motion
Scheduled confirmation
Scheduled confirmation is the placement of a small number of deliberate checkpoints inside a long task, weighted toward the start, in place of confirming every step or confirming only at the end.
Control sits with both parties
When to use it
Tasks long enough that an early error would be expensive to unwind, which in practice means anything over roughly ten steps.
What it prevents
Both failure modes at once: the full redo caused by an error found at the end, and the interruption cost that makes delegation pointless.
Long runcheckpoint 1 of 3
- 1Steps 1 to 3 complete
Ran without asking - 2Checkpoint: 3 of 12
Confirm the mapping before the remaining nine steps build on it - 3Checkpoint at 7
Scheduled - 4Checkpoint at 11
Scheduled
Where it stands
Not yet found in a commercial product. The pattern is drawn from the research.
Sources
Related patterns: Action guard · Altitude control