Two-person approval procedure template

Two-person approval means a depth 4 action an AI agent holds, such as moving money or making a change that is hard to undo, needs two separate certified people to release it. This procedure template sets out who may act as second approver, what each approver checks, the independence rules, what happens on disagreement, and what the record must show.

What is the procedure for and when does it apply?

Depth 4 is where an agent's action becomes expensive to reverse. A payment leaves, an account closes, a contract is sent for signature. Even with a certified agent and a careful first approver, one person can be pressured, rushed or wrong. A second approver who checks independently catches most of what the first missed, and makes collusion harder.

Apply the procedure to every depth 4 capability above a threshold your business sets, and to any depth 4 action the agent holds because its sources disagree. Do not apply it to everything: two-person approval on low-value drafts wastes reviewers' attention and teaches them to click through. The money-specific version is how to set up two-person approval for money moved by AI agents. If you are writing your first procedure, what is a standard operating procedure? covers the format.

How do you fill it in?

Complete each numbered field below. Fields 4 to 6 carry most of the control; spend your time there.

The template

1. Procedure owner: named role accountable for this procedure.
2. Scope: the agent capabilities covered, each with its depth and the threshold above which two approvers are needed.
3. Eligible approvers: roles allowed to act as first and second approver, and the current certificate each must hold.
4. Independence rules: the second approver may not be the first approver, the person who raised the request, anyone who wrote or changed the agent's brief or limits, or someone who reports to the first approver for this decision.
5. What the first approver checks: the agent's draft, its cited sources and their provenance, the bound that caused the hold, and the customer's limit.
6. What the second approver checks: the same sources opened again, not the first approver's summary; payee details against a sealed or signed source; any sign of pressure or instructions arriving through an external document.
7. Order and timing: the response target for each approver, and that neither may approve on the other's behalf.
8. Disagreement: either approver may refuse; a refusal stops the action and routes it to a named escalation role with the reason.
9. Absence and cover: who acts when an eligible approver is away; cover meets the same independence rules.
10. Certificate lapse: an approver whose certificate has lapsed loses the right on the day it lapses.
11. Withheld actions: actions withheld at the platform floor are outside this procedure; no number of approvers can release them.
12. Record: both approvals, with names, times, sources opened and reasons, filed with the verdict.
13. Review: how often the procedure and its thresholds are reviewed, and by whom.

A worked example

A hypothetical property management company runs an agent that prepares tenancy deposit returns. Values are samples.

1. Owner: head of lettings operations.
2. Scope: deposit returns, depth 4. Two approvers above 1,000, or at any value where the tenant's bank details changed in the last 30 days.
3. Eligible approvers: lettings team leads and the finance controller, each with a current operator certificate.
4. Independence: the property manager who agreed deductions with the tenant may not approve; the builder who maintains the agent's brief may not approve.
5. First approver checks the deductions against the check-out report in the property system, and the agent's calculation.
6. Second approver checks the payee name and account against the details held in the tenancy record (sealed), not an email from the tenant (external).
7. Targets: first approver within one working day; second within one working day after.
8. Disagreement: goes to the head of lettings operations with both reasons.
9. Cover: a second team lead; never the first approver's direct report.
10. Lapse: the finance controller's renewal is scheduled a month before expiry.
11. Withheld: reversing a settled return is withheld; any correction is a new, separate payment.
12. Record: both approvals and the sources opened, filed with the verdict.
13. Review: every six months, and after any incident.

Field 6 is the one that earns its keep. A tenant who emails "new bank details" just before a return is a common fraud pattern; the second approver is trained to treat that email as external and check the sealed record. This procedure plugs into the wider human oversight procedure template for AI agents, and if approvers find a pattern of bad drafts, the AI agent suspension procedure template takes over.

Where the Academy fits

Pryme Intelligence Academy certifies the people in fields 3 and 10. Certified Pryme Operator is earned through a written exam and a practicum of real review decisions with no missed red line, and lasts 12 months. A business can adopt the practice that approval rights expire with the certificate, which makes field 10 enforce itself. The skills behind it are mapped in AI agent skills by role.