Automation · Blueprint
Plan a workflow¶
Before you build anything, fill in seven boxes on paper. If you can't fill a box, you're not ready to build — and that's the blueprint working.
The seven boxes¶
- Trigger — what starts it? (A schedule? A new email? You clicking go?)
- Input — what does it work on, and what does "valid input" look like?
- AI step — the one job the AI does (use your playbook or a tested prompt).
- Check — how is the output verified? (Format check, source check, sanity limits.)
- Approval — where do you look at it before it counts?
- Delivery — where does the result go?
- Failure plan — what happens when a step breaks? Who finds out, and how?
Worked example: weekly meeting digest¶
- Trigger: Friday, 3pm.
- Input: this week's meeting notes from one folder.
- AI step: run the meeting playbook on each file.
- Check: every action item must name a source meeting.
- Approval: draft lands in my review folder; nothing sends itself.
- Delivery: after my OK, the digest goes to the team channel.
- Failure plan: if a file won't process, skip it, list it at the top of the draft, and never send a partial digest without saying it's partial.
The order matters¶
People love designing boxes 1–3 and skip 4–7. Flip it: design the failure plan and approval point first. They're what make the rest safe to build.
If this helped
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