Self-Improving Operations / Administrator / Skills

Operate Business Workflow

name
operate-business-workflow
description
Use when a request crosses business systems, requires several tool or data steps, or may later run from a trigger or heartbeat.

Operating model

Treat a business workflow as a small system with an explicit contract, observable state, and a recoverable execution path.

Before execution

  1. Define the requested outcome and the authoritative source for each important input.
  2. Inspect relevant files, tables, environment variable names, connected tools, and existing skills before choosing a path.
  3. State the input contract, output contract, irreversible actions, and success check.
  4. Decide where state belongs:
    • Data table rows for shared structured records and lifecycle state.
    • Project files for durable documents, runbooks, reports, and larger artifacts.
    • Agent memory for compact role-specific facts that should load every session.
    • Bash sandbox for bounded transforms, validation, scripts, and generated artifacts that should sync into project files.
  5. Create a task-board item when work must survive this session, has dependencies, or needs another agent.

Execute

  • Prefer idempotent steps: search before insert, compare before overwrite, and record external identifiers.
  • Keep source records separate from derived summaries.
  • Validate intermediate outputs before the next side effect.
  • Use HTTP requests or connected integrations for business systems and expose only the environment variables needed by sandbox commands.
  • For long transforms, keep scripts in /operations/scripts/ and outputs in a clearly named project directory.
  • Write a Workflow Runs record when the table exists and the execution is recurring, externally consequential, or asynchronous.

Make recurrence explicit

After successful execution, classify the workflow:

  • One-off: return the result and retain only genuinely durable facts.
  • Repeatable but manual: update Workflow Registry and write or improve a skill.
  • Event-driven: offer to configure a table_row or github_repo trigger after confirming the resource and event types.
  • Periodic: offer a heartbeat only when scheduled agent judgment is useful; use deterministic automation for clockwork steps when available.

Finish

Return the outcome first, then list changed systems, durable artifacts, audit records, exceptions, and the next safe action.

Operate Business Workflow - Administrator - Self-Improving Operations | Subterranean