Guides
First governed run
Walk one real action from draft through approval boundary to action receipt — so autonomy feels safe before you turn the dial up.
This is the companion to Get your first win. That page gets you a sourced answer fast. This page walks one governed action end to end so you trust the safety model before agents send, post, or write outside HiveBase.
Target time: about 10 minutes with one connected source.
What “governed” means here
| Stage | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Agent prepares freely — plans, copy, diffs. Not committed to the outside world |
| Approval boundary | Outbound or high-impact steps hold until a human acts |
| Commit | The world changes (email sent, message posted, record updated) |
| Receipt | Durable record: what, why, outcome, undo when one reverse step exists |
Short glossary links: Draft ≠ commit · Approval boundary · Action receipt.
- 01Detect or askReal work appears
- 02Draft / planStill reversible
- 03Approval boundaryHold · edit · reject
- 04CommitWorld changes
- 05Receipt + undoWhen reverse is one step
- 01
Detect or ask
Real work appears
- 02
Draft / plan
Still reversible
- 03
Approval boundary
Hold · edit · reject
- 04
Commit
World changes
- 05
Receipt + undo
When reverse is one step
Prerequisites
- A HiveBase workspace you can act in
- One connected source (Slack, Gmail, or meetings is enough)
- Optional: a teammate invited so they can watch the same hold queue — Invite your team
Walkthrough
Pick a low-stakes outbound
Prefer something reversible or easy to explain if it went wrong later: a draft reply in Gmail, a status note proposed for Slack, or an internal follow-up task that only becomes outbound if you approve. Avoid bulk sends and irreversible deletes for the first run.
Let the agent draft
Trigger work the way you already would — from a task, FYI item, or a natural-language ask. Watch the plan / draft surface. Nothing outside HiveBase should fire while you are still reading.
Inspect the hold
At the approval boundary, open the held step. Check: target (who/what), exact content, and sources that justified the action. Edit if needed; reject if wrong.
Approve once — or Stop
Approve to commit. Or use Stop on the task if you want to halt mid-flight. Pending outbound steps do not fire while you are deciding.
Open the action receipt
After commit, open the action receipt: what ran, why, outcome, and undo when reverse is a single coherent step. If the action was multi-step without one reverse, expect ledger honesty — not a fake undo button.
What good feels like
You should finish with: (1) confidence that drafts do not auto-send, (2) one receipt you can point at, (3) a clear Stop path. Only then consider earned autonomy for that action category.
What to try next (still governed)
| Next practice | Why |
|---|---|
| Same category, second run | Pattern recognition on holds and receipts |
| Invite a teammate to co-approve once | Shared risk literacy for customer-facing channels |
| Read Earned autonomy | How categories graduate without a company-wide autopilot switch |
| Tighten or loosen the dial deliberately | Defaults are conservative; you own the dial |
Failure modes (normal, not broken)
| Symptom | Likely meaning |
|---|---|
| Nothing ever holds | You only ran internal or read-only work — try a real outbound draft |
| Everything holds including notes | Autonomy dial is tight — expected until you graduate categories |
| No undo on the receipt | Multi-step or irreversible class — ledger only; not a product bug |
| Draft looks wrong | Reject or edit at the boundary; correct the Brain claim if sources are stale |