Human in the Loop

Definition

A workflow where the agent pauses for a person to review or approve before a consequential step runs. It trades a little speed for control, and is the standard safeguard around anything irreversible or outbound.

More from MCP for Productivity

• Cross-Tool Workflow

  A task that spans several MCP servers in sequence, where each tool's output feeds the next — read mail, propose a calendar hold, draft a reply, log a ticket. The skill is sequencing the steps and passing the right context across each hand-off.

• Draft vs. Send

  The distinction between preparing an outbound artifact for review (a draft) and actually dispatching it (send). Keeping the agent on the draft side means a human reads and approves before anything reaches a real recipient.

• Free/Busy

  Calendar availability data that says when you're booked without revealing the details of each event. It's what an agent reads to find an open slot while respecting privacy — busy blocks, not meeting titles.

• Inbox Triage

  Sorting incoming messages by what needs action, what can wait, and what can be ignored, so the important few surface above the noise. With a mail server connected over MCP, you can ask the agent to triage by query — flagging, labeling, or summarizing — instead of reading every message yourself.

• Knowledge Base

  A searchable store of documents and notes — a Drive folder, a Notion workspace, a wiki — that an agent can read from and write to as durable team memory. Putting results there, instead of in a throwaway chat reply, makes them findable later.

• MCP Resource

  The read side of an MCP server — the data it exposes (messages, files, events, records) as opposed to the tools that take action. Pulling a resource is how the agent gets real context before it does anything; it's the safe, no-side-effect half of an MCP connection.