{
  "id": "human-in-the-loop",
  "code": "PTL-0143",
  "term": "Human-in-the-Loop",
  "aliases": [
    "HITL",
    "human approval",
    "human oversight",
    "human checkpoint"
  ],
  "category": "agents",
  "definition": "Human-in-the-loop is a design in which an AI system pauses at defined checkpoints for a person to approve, correct, or supply information before it continues, especially before consequential or irreversible actions.",
  "description": "Checkpoints trade autonomy for safety and accuracy. They are commonly placed before sending messages, spending money, deleting data, or deploying code, and when the agent is uncertain. Requiring confirmation for consequential actions is a key mitigation for prompt injection and excessive agency, because an attacker who steers the agent still cannot complete the action unseen.",
  "example": null,
  "broader": [],
  "narrower": [],
  "related": [
    "ai-agent",
    "excessive-agency",
    "computer-use-agent",
    "evaluator-optimizer"
  ],
  "introduced": null,
  "added": "2026-10-10",
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "Building effective agents",
      "authors": "Anthropic",
      "year": 2024,
      "url": "https://www.anthropic.com/research/building-effective-agents"
    },
    {
      "title": "LLM06:2025 Excessive Agency",
      "authors": "OWASP Gen AI Security Project",
      "year": 2025,
      "url": "https://genai.owasp.org/llmrisk/llm062025-excessive-agency/"
    }
  ],
  "url": "https://protologue.com/t/human-in-the-loop/",
  "citation": "Protologue. (2026). Human-in-the-Loop. In Protologue: A Taxonomy of Prompting and LLM Techniques (v1.4.0, PTL-0143). https://protologue.com/t/human-in-the-loop/"
}