---
title: "Bounded workflow: definition | Chainfore"
url: https://chainfore.com/glossary/bounded-workflow
updated: 2026-10-22
summary: "A business process in which the data an agent may read, the tools it may call and the actions needing approval are defined in code before the agent runs."
---

Glossary

# Bounded workflow

A business process in which the data an agent may read, the tools it may call and the actions needing approval are defined in code before the agent runs.

## Example

Writes that exceed a threshold wait for an approval tied to that exact action and its expiry.

## Related terms

- 01 Staged autonomy: Granting an agent authority in four stages: offline, shadow, supervised, limited; each expansion requires owner approval and new evidence.

- 02 Agent reliability engineering: The practice of bounding, verifying, recovering and measuring AI agents that act inside enterprise systems, so that autonomy is expanded on evidence.