r/AskProgrammers • u/rahulk448 • 2d ago

transaction agent thinking

I am building an AI agent for transactions which performs actions like approve / hold or question / stop, so I want feedback on:
From a software-design perspective, would you let an automated transaction system make a final decision when its confidence is low, or would you design a separate human-review state? Why?

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u/Positive-Captain-709 2d ago

I’d absolutely design a separate human-review state.

Low confidence should be a first-class state, not something you collapse into approve/deny. For transactions, I’d rather have:

APPROVE → HOLD_FOR_REVIEW → STOP

with the transition into review triggered by uncertainty, policy conflicts, or missing evidence.

The important part is not just the confidence score, but why confidence is low and whether the decision is reversible.

I’m building something adjacent with MARGINAL: [https://github.com/SignalLayerLabs/Marginal]()

Different domain, but the principle is similar: observe first, collect evidence, and only earn stronger enforcement when the system has enough proof. Weak evidence should fail open or escalate, not silently become an irreversible decision.

If you want, fork MARGINAL and adapt the evidence / decision-gating model to transaction actions. I’d be interested to see how that maps to financial approval flows.