Durable Execution & Human Approval

Keep long-running work bound to what made it valid.

Pause for people. Wait for events. Resume later. Recover from failures. Commit consequential actions without losing the proposal, authority, policy, approval, version, or operation identity that governs the work.

Execution Instance graph version, proposal, current state
Human Approval State reviewer, authority, exact proposition
Recovery is itself a governed action.
Durable state

Preserve the meaning of work across time

What started the work

Execution Instance, Published Graph version, active proposal, tenant, current state, and Business Operation Identity.

What governs continuation

Authority, policy references, approval state, pending obligations, event correlation, and freshness requirements.

What explains the outcome

Evidence connects waits, resumes, retries, approvals, effects, and recovery decisions back to the application model.

Approval continuity

Detect when an approval no longer applies

The world can move while an execution waits. A Material Change Gate compares the current proposal with the proposition that was approved.

Proposal v3 approvedProposal v4 changesApproval invalidatedRe-review
Safe external actions

Preserve uncertainty instead of turning timeout into false certainty

Not Attempted
Attempted
Confirmed
Ambiguous
Failed
Reconciled
Compensated
Stopped
Before retry

Reconcile before retrying an ambiguous effect

For a consequential action, the safest next step may be to determine what actually happened before another attempt becomes eligible.

Business Operation Identity
Destination idempotency key
Receipt or resource revision
Webhook, ledger entry, or external status
Durable wait state

Let an Execution Instance wait without keeping a process alive

Wait for a reviewer, supplier response, customer action, document, callback, timer, external event, or additional evidence without relying on a live browser session or runtime node.

Resume contract

Resume only when the event still belongs to the work

Check event identity, tenant, Execution Instance, expected wait, proposal, resource, current state, policy, expiry, version, and duplicate handling before advancing.

Human approval

Treat approval as durable application state

The business requirement is stronger than a button click: what exact proposition was approved, by whom, under which authority and conditions, and does it still apply?

Review Package: proposed action, material terms, evidence, Context Package, risk facts, policy obligations, and available actions.
Approval Binding: proposal, evidence, reviewer, authority, policy, decision, conditions, and permitted transition.
Step-Up Authentication: fresh assurance when the consequence warrants it.
Runtime continuity

Keep running work bound to the version and operation that govern it

Application version

Execution A can continue under the version required to interpret its active state while new executions start under a newer version.

Runtime mobility

The same Execution Instance can resume on another eligible runtime node without becoming a new business process.

Business Operation Identity

One intended business action remains stable across technical attempts, reconciliation, retry eligibility, and effect receipt.

Design one long-running AI process without losing its meaning.

Use an architecture review to map waits, approvals, event resumes, retries, reconciliation, and external effects for one consequential workflow.