Agentic Feature Launch Checklist (2026)

Goal: Ship an AI “operator” (software that takes actions) with bounded autonomy, measurable ROI, and auditable control.

1) Define the workflow and boundaries
- Name the workflow in one sentence (e.g., “Resolve password reset tickets end-to-end”).
- List allowed tools/actions (read vs write). Explicitly list disallowed actions.
- Define success criteria that can be verified (API response + business rule, not “sounds right”).
- Define risk thresholds (money $ amount, recipient count, permission level, destructive actions).

2) Design the trust UX
- Add scopes in UI (“This agent can: X. It cannot: Y.”).
- Require approval for high-risk actions; auto-execute low-risk actions.
- Provide a receipt after every run: steps taken, objects changed, links to records.
- Implement undo/rollback for at least the top 2 write actions.

3) Instrumentation and audit
- Log: user id, tenant id, timestamps, model version, prompt/template version.
- Log tool calls: inputs, outputs, latency, errors, retries.
- Store an audit trail suitable for enterprise review (retention policy, export capability).
- Add an internal “flight recorder” view for support and engineering.

4) Evaluation gates
- Build a scenario set from real historical examples (tickets, invoices, leads). Start with 50–200.
- Add deterministic checks (schema validation, permission checks, business rules).
- Add replay tests with frozen tool responses.
- Define launch gates:
  * Completion rate target (e.g., 70%+) on beta scenarios
  * Intervention rate cap (e.g., <30%)
  * P95 time-to-value target (e.g., <45s)

5) Cost controls
- Set budgets and alerts (daily + monthly).
- Configure max tool calls (e.g., 10), max wall time (e.g., 45s), and max retries.
- Use model routing: smaller models for classification/routing; larger models for planning.
- Track cost per successful completion, not cost per run.

6) Rollout plan
- Start with internal users, then a small design partner cohort.
- Ship “draft mode” first; expand autonomy via feature flags.
- Create an incident process (severity levels, on-call, postmortems).
- Every incident updates: (a) policy rules, (b) scenario tests, (c) UX copy.

7) GA readiness
- Admin controls: enable tools, set thresholds, require approvals, disable autonomy.
- Security review: least privilege OAuth scopes, token storage, access controls.
- Support playbooks: how to interpret receipts/logs, when to escalate, how to roll back.
- Business reporting: ROI dashboard (time saved, deflection, revenue influenced), plus risk metrics (approvals, overrides, incidents).

Use this checklist as a stage gate: if you can’t meet the eval + trust + cost gates in beta, don’t expand autonomy—tighten the workflow first.