Autonomy & trust modes
Every agent runs in one of three modes. The mode is the single biggest lever for how much trust you're placing in the agent — start low and raise it as the agent earns confidence.
| Mode | Publishes? | Review? | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Approval | No — proposes | Required | Starting out, high-stakes accounts |
| Sequential | Optional (autoPublish) | Per step | Step-by-step pipelines |
| Autonomous | Yes | None | Trusted, hands-off operation |
Approval mode
The agent proposes posts but never publishes them. Proposals queue up for your review; you approve, edit, or reject each one.
- A
proposalBuffercaps how many pending proposals accumulate (defaults topostsPerDay + 1, capped at 5), so proposals don't pile up while you're away. - Use this when you're calibrating the agent's voice, or for accounts where a bad post is costly.
This is the recommended starting mode.
Sequential mode
The agent works through a sequence of steps — e.g. plan → draft → media →
schedule — pausing between steps. The autoPublish flag controls the final
step:
autoPublish: false(default) — drafts proposals for review (like approval mode, but structured as a pipeline).autoPublish: true— runs the pipeline to completion and publishes.
Use sequential mode when you want visibility into each phase of content creation before it advances.
Autonomous mode
The agent publishes within its boundaries with no per-post review. It still
respects every limit: postsPerDay, weeklyPostLimit, posting gaps, caption
tone, enabled post types, and the failureThreshold that pauses it on repeat
failures.
If the agent's collections run dry (every media item used, or none assigned), it doesn't go quiet. Each agent picks a fallback strategy in its settings: Post text (default) publishes a standalone text post on the channels that accept one, and Generate images creates a brand-matched image (1 credit) to attach to the post. If image generation fails — or none of the agent's channels accept images — the run degrades to the text fallback. Every volume limit still applies. Review modes do not fall back — the slot is skipped and logged so you can top up the collections.
Use autonomous mode once you've reviewed enough proposals to trust the agent's judgment. Everything is still logged to the audit trail, so you can audit after the fact and dial back if needed.
The trust dial
The intended progression:
- Start in approval mode.
- Review proposals, adjust the brand profile and tone until the output consistently fits.
- Switch to sequential with
autoPublish: falseto see the pipeline. - When you're confident, go autonomous (or sequential with
autoPublish: true).
You can change modes or pause an agent at any time.
Failure handling
If an agent hits failureThreshold consecutive failures (default 3), it pauses
itself (isActive: false) rather than hammering a broken path. Check the audit
log to see what failed, fix the root cause, and re-enable.
Related
- Agents overview — boundaries and the audit log.
- Brand profiles & goals — steering context.