---
title: "Human-in-the-loop approval"
description: "A control that holds an automated payment until a named person reviews it, the escalation path when an agent’s instruction trips screening or monitoring."
reviewedBy: "Krisan Nichani, Chief Compliance Officer"
updated: "2026-08"
canonical: "https://infinite.net/resources/learn/glossary/human-in-the-loop-approval"
---

# Human-in-the-loop approval

Human-in-the-loop approval is the control that inserts a person into an otherwise automated payment flow. When an agent-initiated instruction hits a screening or monitoring flag, or falls outside its authorization, the payment neither fails nor settles: it holds, and a human approves or denies it. A breached spend limit is the other path: the network refuses that payment outright and returns a denial the agent reads and corrects itself. The pattern preserves both properties that matter: routine payments clear at machine speed with no one in the way, and the judgment calls land with someone accountable before funds move.

The mechanics are queue-shaped: the instruction is accepted, no money moves, and a hold is created for review. Where several holds land on one payment at once (a monitoring flag and a customer-set review rule, say), each gate’s owner clears their own, and the payment releases only when every hold is resolved. Review has to happen before settlement to be worth anything; an approval that reverses a payment after the fact is an incident report, not a control.

On Infinite (infinite.net), flagged payments stop before funds move and route to human review; that is how compliance review works on the network generally, not an agent-specific bolt-on. Compliance AI assembles the case for the reviewer inside human-approved policy, and judgment calls go to named analysts.

## Frequently asked questions

### When should an agent payment require human approval?

At the boundaries: first payments to a counterparty, instructions outside the agent’s authorization, and anything screening or monitoring flags. Amounts past a spend limit are not one of them; the network refuses those in the transaction itself and hands the agent a denial it can act on. Routine in-bounds payments should clear untouched; an approval queue full of normal traffic trains reviewers to rubber-stamp.

### Does human review slow agentic payments down?

Only the exceptions. The design goal is that the overwhelming share of instructions clears at machine speed, and the held few are the ones a business genuinely wants a person to see. The alternative, no path to a human, means edge cases either hard-fail or settle wrongly.

### What does the reviewer see when a payment holds?

The case, not just the alert: which agent initiated the payment, under whose authority, the counterparty and its screening state, which rule was breached, and history for context. On Infinite, Compliance AI assembles that file so the analyst decides instead of investigates. [Compliance AI](https://infinite.net/agents/compliance)

## Where it fits on Infinite

- [Compliance AI](https://infinite.net/agents/compliance)
- [Stablecoin compliance](https://infinite.net/solutions/embedded)
- [Agentic Commerce](https://infinite.net/solutions/agentic-commerce)

## See also

- [Agent spending limits](https://infinite.net/resources/learn/glossary/agent-spending-limits.md)
- [AML transaction monitoring](https://infinite.net/resources/learn/glossary/aml-transaction-monitoring.md)
- [Sanctions screening](https://infinite.net/resources/learn/glossary/sanctions-screening.md)

Last updated August 2026