When the agent team runs into something only a person can decide, it stops, goes to the issue owner, and says exactly what you need to decide or provide. Once you reply, it carries on.
When agents come to you
| Situation | What you see | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| A decision is needed from you | The issue moves to Blocked and is labeled Needs your reply in My issues | Reply to the question |
| A run still fails after retrying | A decision card for the failed run appears on the issue, labeled Run failed | Retry, give it to a person, or don't retry |
| Runs triggered between agents hit the limit | The issue page offers Continue (comment-triggered runs reached their limit) | Confirm to continue |
| Someone hands an issue over to you | It's labeled Needs you to take over in My issues | Take it over or decline |
| Someone asks to continue on your personal runtime | A request on the issue page | Confirm or reject |
You handle all of these on the issue page, and they're gathered under Waiting for you in My issues.
Answer a question on a blocked issue
When the coordinator agent hits something that needs a person's judgment, it moves the issue to Blocked and spells out what you need to decide or provide in the Needs you card at the top of the issue page. Common cases:
- There are several possible approaches, each with pros and cons.
- The request doesn't cover a business rule, for example the plan turns out to conflict with an existing approval rule.
- A permission, secret, or document is missing.
- The project has no CI yet, so the PR has no check results, and it asks whether to set up CI first or go straight to acceptance.
- Open the issue and read the Needs you card. For the background, click View the coordinator agent’s latest explanation to read it in full.
- Click Reply. The reply box opens under the coordinator agent's explanation.
- Write your decision and send it.
Your reply wakes the coordinator agent, which carries on based on your answer.
Supplier scoring and tiers
Zhou Hang: today an order needs the purchasing manager’s approval only above ¥50,000. Should every order from a tier C supplier need approval regardless of amount, or should the amount rule still apply? Development starts once you confirm.
View the coordinator agent’s latest explanationGive the decision first, then one sentence of reasoning, for example: "Every order from a tier C supplier needs approval regardless of amount. Other suppliers keep the amount rule. Tier C suppliers are a delivery risk, so even small orders need a check." If you're not sure, ask it to lay out a few options and what each one means.
Failed runs
An agent's run can fail because a runtime went offline, a coding tool ran out of quota, the network dropped, and so on. Failures that can be retried are retried automatically. Once the retries run out, the owner gets a Run failed: what next? card:
CXThe run of Codex · GPT-5.5 failed after 3 attempts: the runtime is offline.
- Retry: have the agent try again. Good for temporary problems, such as a runtime that just came back online.
- Give to a person: make a member the executor so a person does the work.
- Don't retry: drop this run.
The runs record shows why it failed. The coordinator agent may also move a failed step to another suitable agent on its own. If the same step fails twice, it moves the issue to Blocked to ask you.
Comment run limit reached
To keep agents from triggering each other back and forth, comments from agents can trigger only so many runs per issue in 24 hours, 20 by default, which admins can adjust. After that, agent comments no longer start new runs, and the owner is notified.
Once you're sure the issue really needs to continue, click Continue (comment-triggered runs reached their limit) on the issue page. Posting a comment of your own that wakes an agent also resets the count.
Look at the activity and the runs first. Is an agent fixing the same problem over and over? If so, clarifying the request or adjusting the issue works better than simply continuing.
Take over an issue handed to you
When someone hands an issue's ownership over to you, it shows up under Needs you to take over. Until you take it over, the agents' work is paused, and anything waiting for the owner's decision waits for you too.
- Open the issue and click Take over the issue. You become the owner and can go on answering questions and accepting results.
- You can also decline. The issue goes back to its previous owner. If the previous owner's account has been deactivated, the issue stays with you and remains paused.
Requests to use your personal runtime
A personal runtime runs only work its owner starts. When someone else comments on an issue you own and the next piece of work needs your personal runtime, the issue page shows "{name} requests to continue on your personal runner", and you can Confirm or Reject. The work runs on your personal runtime only after you confirm.