A Decoupled Human-in-the-Loop System for Controlled Autonomy in Agentic Workflows

Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence arXiv:2604.23049 (cs) [Submitted on 24 Apr 2026] Title:A Decoupled Human-in-the-Loop System for Controlled Autonomy in Agentic Workflows Authors:Edward Cheng, Jeshua Cheng View a PDF of the paper titled A Decoupled Human-in-the-Loop System for Controlled Autonomy in Agentic Workflows, by Edward Cheng and 1 other authors View PDF Abstract:AI agents are increasingly deployed to execute tasks and make decisions within agentic workflows, introducing new requirements for safe and controlled autonomy. Prior work has established the importance of human oversight for ensuring transparency, accountability, and trustworthiness in such systems. However, existing implementations of Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) mechanisms are typically embedded within application logic, limiting reuse, consistency, and scalability across multi-agent environments. This paper presents a decoupled HITL system architecture that treats human oversight as an independent system component within the agent operating environment. The proposed design separates human interaction management from application workflows through explicit interfaces and a structured execution model. In addition, a design framework is introduced to formalize HITL integration along four dimensions: intervention conditions, role resolution, interaction semantics, and communication channel. This framework enables selective and context-aware human involvement while maintaining system-level consistency. The approach supports alignment with emerging agent communication protocols, allowing HITL to be implemented as a protocol-level concern. By externalizing HITL and structuring its integration, the system provides a foundation for scalable governance and progressive autonomy in agentic workflows. Comments: 8 pages, 2 figures Subjects: Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) Cite as: arXiv:2604.23049 [cs.AI] (or arXiv:2604.23049v1 [cs.AI] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.23049 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Edward Cheng [view email] [v1] Fri, 24 Apr 2026 22:28:08 UTC (435 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled A Decoupled Human-in-the-Loop System for Controlled Autonomy in Agentic Workflows, by Edward Cheng and 1 other authorsView PDF view license Current browse context: cs.AI < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-04 Change to browse by: cs References & Citations NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search…

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