The one-page brief to write before automating a trade workflow

When a team starts discussing agents, Skills or MCP, the business action it wants to change is often still unclear. A one-page workflow brief makes later scoping, quoting and acceptance more concrete.

Describe the action before naming the tool

Replace “we want AI to help with customer service” with an observable action. For example: after an English inquiry arrives, extract the product, quantity and delivery fields, draft a reply from reviewed materials, and ask a business person to approve price terms before sending.

That description contains the trigger, inputs, output and human approval point. It is easier to test than “add an AI customer-service bot,” and it keeps the first discussion open to the tools that fit the real conditions.

A useful brief covers six areas

Original process illustration; not a client case.

1. Trigger and scope: what starts the process and what must never start it.
2. Input materials: source, version, missing fields and conflict handling.
3. Expected output: fields, format, recipient and what “usable” means.
4. Permission boundary: what may be read or written and who approves it.
5. Exception path: how to stop when data is missing, duplicated, unavailable or uncertain.
6. Acceptance samples: which approved or redacted examples will be used to judge the result.

Set automation boundaries with business risk

Sensitive actions such as price, delivery promises, claims and external sending should usually retain human approval. A system can organize material, draft a reply and flag missing fields, but “can generate” does not mean it has permission to send or write back.

This is a starting point for a requirements discussion, not a quote, contract or delivery guarantee. Chenfeng AI assesses the next step against the actual materials, integrations and permissions.