# What automates and what does not (/docs/method/what-automates)

---
type: Document
title: What automates and what does not
description: Domain-free rules for deciding whether a step belongs to the AI or to a person, and the four conditions a step must meet to be automated safely.
status: stable
order: 3
generated: { by: "process:claude-code", at: 2026-08-27T12:00:00Z }
verified:
  - { by: "human:rrizwan98", at: 2026-08-28T14:00:00Z }
ksor:
  audience: [public]
  owner: human:rrizwan98
  approval: { by: "human:rrizwan98", at: 2026-08-27T12:30:00Z }
trust_tier: human-reviewed
build_id: sha256:d9f989bee8fa4c15cf0f7f1572f9e9a18305ef4e2ce0c3cfb6a5a421ead6dc1d
dirty: true
---

Tagging a step is a judgement, and these are the rules that make it the same
judgement every time, whatever the business.

## The four conditions

A step can be automated when **all four** hold. Miss one and it stays with a
person, or the step gets redesigned until it holds.

| | Condition | What it means |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **Repeatable** | The step happens the same way often enough to be worth writing down. A step that is different every time is a decision wearing a process costume. |
| 2 | **Checkable** | There is a way to tell a good result from a bad one without asking the person who produced it. A test, a rule, a rubric, a comparison. |
| 3 | **Reachable** | The tools and data the step needs can be reached with permission: an API, a file, a database, an inbox. A step that needs someone to walk to a desk is not reachable yet. |
| 4 | **Reversible or gated** | Either a mistake can be undone cheaply, or the step sits behind a human gate. Irreversible and ungated is the one combination that is never allowed. |

## What stays with a person, in every business

- **Taste and judgement.** Which of two good options fits the brand, the client, the moment.
- **Relationships.** The conversation where trust is built or lost.
- **Price and terms.** What something is worth to this buyer, and what you will accept.
- **Risk and liability.** Anything where being wrong costs money, safety or reputation.
- **The exception.** The case the written procedure did not anticipate. Automation should recognise it and stop, not improvise through it.
- **The final yes.** Someone signs before it goes live, leaves the building, or reaches a customer.

## What almost always automates

- **Intake and triage.** Turning a message, a form or a ticket into a structured record with the missing questions asked.
- **Gathering.** Collecting the documents, logs, prices, references or history a step needs.
- **Drafting.** The first version of anything: a spec, a page, a reply, a report, a plan.
- **Checking.** Running the rules against the work: tests, checklists, scores, comparisons.
- **The fix loop.** Reading a failed check and correcting the work until it passes.
- **Packaging and handover.** The delivery note, the deploy, the summary, the log of what was done.
- **Chasing.** Status, reminders, follow-ups, anything whose whole content is "where is this".

## Three traps

**"It needs judgement" is often "nobody wrote it down."**
Ask what the person actually considers. If the answer is a list, it is a rule
and it can be written. If the answer is "it depends, you get a feel for it",
it is judgement.

**Automating a broken step makes it fail faster.**
If a step is unclear, unowned, or done differently by each person, fix it as a
process first. A system built on it will enforce the confusion perfectly.

**The last mile is where the time goes.**
Drafting is the easy 20%. Checking, fixing, packaging and handing over are the
80%, and those are exactly the steps people leave out of the count. Include
them, or the number will flatter you.

## Where the safety comes from

Automating a step does not mean trusting the AI to behave. The process lives in
a server, and the server refuses what the process forbids: out-of-order work,
missing evidence, self-reported scores, placeholder text, an edit after
approval. Read [how I work](../about/how-i-work.md) for what that looks like in
practice.

That is why the four conditions include "checkable": a step nobody can check is
a step nobody can enforce.