Delegate AI research with clear limits on execution

EDITORIAL PRACTICE

Agree on the outcome before studying the implementation

Treat the workflow discussed below as a bounded assignment for an offshore delivery team and an AI operator. The client explains the business goal and priorities. The operator breaks the work into tasks, directs the AI, checks its output and returns unresolved decisions instead of silently inventing requirements.

Ask for a working result, evidence from the relevant checks and a short list of remaining limitations. Start with one feature or operational workflow, and compare implementation, review and ongoing support costs separately. Neither an offshore location nor the use of AI guarantees savings or quality.

Agree on a reporting cadence and escalation conditions so the client does not have to watch every step. The technical details below are acceptance topics for the delivery team to explain and verify, not a new daily workload for the client. Actual scope depends on the agreed service and access conditions.

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FROM PRIMARY SOURCES

Separate evidence from instructions

OpenAI’s agent-safety documentation advises against putting untrusted input directly into developer messages, whose instructions have higher priority. External pages and user submissions should not be mixed with the application’s operating policy. The appropriate message structure depends on the API and workflow being used.

Our recommendation is to treat an external document as material to inspect: what it claims, where it came from and which task it concerns. A request inside it to send secrets or visit a different destination is not authorization to act. Preserve the source and retrieval time so a reviewer can compare the original material with the AI’s interpretation.

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EDITORIAL PRACTICE

Do not convert reading results directly into permission

A proposed pattern is to extract selected fields first and check business rules in a separate stage. For example, classify an inquiry independently from updating a customer record. A classification alone should not permit a write; the intended subject, current state and permitted operation also need checking.

Structured output is one boundary, not a complete solution to prompt injection. Combine scoped permissions, checks before execution, human judgment where needed and operational detection of unexpected results. The documented techniques reduce risk rather than guaranteeing that every malicious instruction will be stopped.

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EDITORIAL PRACTICE

Share examples that should stop the workflow

Testing only ordinary documents leaves the response to hostile material undefined. We suggest checking a normal request, a document impersonating a trusted source and a request for an out-of-scope action. Record when the workflow stops, what evidence it retains and who receives the case.

Use carefully scoped examples when sharing lessons across an overseas team. Remove unnecessary personal and secret information and explain which boundary was challenged. The aim is to make the allowed reading and execution scopes concrete, not to prevent every useful workflow from reading outside material.

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