A lapsed certificate means the reviewer's approval rights pause until they renew. They can still read the workspace, prepare cases and learn, but held actions that need a certified approver go to someone whose certificate is current. Nothing they approved before the lapse becomes invalid. The record simply stops accepting their approval from the expiry date.
Is this the person's certificate or the agent's?
Two certificates are easy to confuse, and the difference matters.
An agent's certificate is the evidence that an agent passed its certification on the customer's own cases. Agent certificates lapse after 90 days, and a run that clears no depth drops the agent to depth 1 the same day. When that happens, work the agent used to finish arrives as held drafts.
A reviewer's certificate is the evidence that a person has shown they can review an agent's decisions well. When it lapses, the agent is unchanged. What changes is who may approve the agent's held work.
This page is about the second. Both appear in the record, and both are part of the minimum chain in different ways: the agent's certificate is one of the five bounds on the action, and the reviewer's certificate decides who may clear a hold.
What can a reviewer with a lapsed certificate still do?
| Activity | Allowed after lapse? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Read the workspace and the record | Yes | Reading creates no decision |
| Prepare a held item, add notes, gather documents | Yes | Preparation helps the approver |
| Approve, edit and release a held action | No | Approval rights depend on a current certificate |
| Decline a held action | Usually no | A decline is also a decision with consequences; most businesses route it too |
| Teach or coach others on approvals | No | They are not current themselves |
| Take the renewal module and quiz | Yes | This restores the rights |
Whether approval rights depend on a current certificate is a practice a business adopts, depth by depth. Many tie approvals at depth 3 and 4, routine execution and money movement, to a current certificate, and leave depth 2 drafts open to a wider group. The policy should say so in writing.
An example: the Monday morning lapse
Take a payments operations team where one senior reviewer's certificate expired on Sunday. On Monday, the agent holds a batch of supplier payments above the customer's limit. The workspace no longer lists the senior reviewer as an eligible approver for depth 4 holds, so the items route to two colleagues with current certificates.
The senior reviewer reads each held item and leaves notes for the approvers, which speeds them up. By Wednesday they complete the renewal module and quiz, the certificate is reissued, and their approval rights return. The record shows exactly who approved what during the gap, and nobody had to remember to check.
The lapse was predictable. The process that handles it, set out in how to handle a reviewer whose AI agent certificate has lapsed, should start weeks before the expiry date with reminders, not on the day.
Which controls make the pause reliable?
- Check the status at source, not from a spreadsheet. A certificate checked at its issuer shows whether it is current, lapsed or revoked. Checking a certificate at source is what stops an expired PDF from being accepted as proof.
- Enforce in the workspace. If approval rights depend on certification, the workspace should refuse an approval from someone whose certificate has lapsed, rather than relying on the person to notice.
- Keep a written procedure. The lapsed certificate procedure template covers notice, cover, renewal and the record.
- Plan cover. No queue should depend on one certified approver.
In Pryme Intelligence Academy, the Certified Pryme Operator certificate is valid for 12 months and renewal is an update module and a short quiz, so a lapse is usually a matter of days. The wider picture is in the guide to AI literacy and certification for people who work with agents.
Questions people ask
Are decisions approved just before the lapse still valid?
Yes. Validity is judged at the time of the decision. An approval made while the certificate was current stays valid, and the record shows the certificate status at that moment.
Should a lapsed reviewer be removed from the team?
No. A lapse is administrative, not a judgement on competence. Revocation is different and follows a separate process when someone's review decisions show they should not approve.
What happens if a whole team lapses at once?
The queue has no eligible approvers and held work waits. That is why renewals should be staggered and tracked centrally, and why an owner should see upcoming expiries well in advance.