An AI Agent Should Show Its Changes Before Publishing

An AI agent should put the proposed result in front of the person authorizing publication, then publish the version that was reviewed. The important detail is the connection between those two moments. If the agent changes the contents, destination or audience after review, the earlier approval may no longer cover the action.

This is a release decision for publishers and founders, not a demand to interrupt every edit. Existing authorization can cover routine work within a defined scope. When approval is required, make it concrete: identify the candidate, expose the changes that matter and state where the result will appear.

A review packet is the small set of material needed to authorize release. The table gives six fields worth keeping together. It is an editorial decision aid, not a prescribed approval system. A short revision can fit in a few lines; a complex release may need linked evidence, but the approval should still identify a single candidate.

Git’s diff documentation describes comparisons between working files, staged content and committed trees. The comparison must name the relevant endpoints. Looking at unstaged edits alone can miss content already staged for the candidate.

RFC 9110, section 13.1.1 defines If-Match for conditional requests, including avoiding accidental overwrites when a representation has changed. Where supported, a revision check can guard the write boundary. It is a concurrency mechanism, not proof that a human approved the proposed content.

The practical rule here is our interpretation: retain both the reviewed candidate and the conditions of approval. A system without revision preconditions may need an application-level check. Do not imply that adding a confirmation sentence to a prompt creates an enforced publication control.

Consider a hypothetical announcement whose visible body looks correct. The candidate also changes a download link and makes the page available to everyone instead of a named review group. A screenshot of the body can leave both differences unclear. The reviewer needs the destination and access change alongside the visual candidate.

Show removals as well as additions. A shorter draft may omit a limitation the owner relied on, even if every remaining sentence is accurate. For a factual update, use the fact-preservation guide to trace dependent claims before assembling the review packet.

Keep the packet readable. Explain the consequential differences in plain language, then link the exact comparison for inspection. A list of filenames is insufficient when the reader’s decision concerns a promise, an audience or an external side effect.

Suppose an owner approves candidate A for a public page. The agent then fixes a typo within an explicitly allowed editorial scope. That may remain covered. If it also changes a price, removes a qualification or adds an email announcement, those actions require checking the approval’s scope. The relevant distinction is what was authorized, not whether the agent calls the change small.

When scope is unclear, keep the prepared result reviewable and ask about the specific difference. Do not discard useful completed work merely because release needs another decision. Our ask-instead-of-guessing guide covers that threshold.

For a changing destination, identify both the candidate revision and the destination revision against which the update was prepared. If another editor changes the destination, compare the new state before overwriting it. A candidate can be unchanged while the proposed update is no longer the same operation.

After the authorized action, record what actually happened: published candidate, destination and a check from the intended audience. If the action only saved a draft, report that state. The delivery-state reference supplies precise language for preparation, storage, dispatch and access.

A failed status lookup should not trigger a second publication automatically. Keep the operation reference and inspect the destination. The review packet authorizes an action under specified conditions; it does not establish whether an uncertain attempt completed.

Retain the approval and outcome together so the next editor can distinguish what was proposed, what was authorized and what appeared. This makes a later correction easier to scope without turning every minor edit into a new approval ritual.