> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://altostrat.io/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How an agent solves a ticket

> Follow a support agent from its job description through investigation, action, human decisions, resolution, and learning.

An Altostrat support agent follows a case from the incoming request to a verified result. It gathers context, investigates with connected tools, carries out permitted work, and updates the customer. Your team sets its responsibility, controls its access, and handles the decisions and exceptions that need a person.

**The lifecycle is: receive, investigate, decide, act, verify, respond, and learn.** You configure that workflow for your support operation; the agent keeps each case moving through it.

```mermaid theme={null}
flowchart TD
    accTitle: The lifecycle of a support agent task
    accDescr: A request enters investigation and a decision. The agent acts within policy or waits for a person, verifies the result, and responds or escalates. Reviewed lessons inform later work.
    Request[Receive the request] --> Investigate[Gather context<br/>Investigate]
    Investigate --> Decide{Ready to act?}
    Decide -->|Need a person| Human[Ask or request approval]
    Human --> Decide
    Decide -->|Permitted action| Act[Carry out the work]
    Act --> Verify[Check the result]
    Verify --> Respond[Respond and close<br/>or escalate with evidence]
    Respond -. Review the lesson .-> Investigate
```

## Give the agent a job

Create the agent inside a shared channel. Describe the requests it should handle, the systems and customers in scope, what it may do, and what counts as success. Add the connections, credentials, workflow steps, limits, and human responders it needs.

For example: handle requests to change a service account setting. Read the ticket, identify the correct customer and user, inspect the current setting, make the permitted change, read it back, and send the customer an accurate update. Escalate if the identity is unclear or the result cannot be verified.

Start with a controlled manual task. Test a successful case, a rejected action, missing information, and an unavailable connection before enabling unattended intake. See [Create an agent](https://altostrat.io/docs/studio/en/digital-workers.md#create-an-agent).

## Follow a single ticket

**1. Receive and understand**

An enabled webhook, schedule, or manual request starts a task. The agent reads the request through its configured connections and establishes the customer, target, and expected outcome. Missing information becomes a question for your team.

**2. Investigate with context**

The agent checks live systems and, when enabled and permitted, searches Org Brain for shared operating knowledge. A previous fix is useful context; current checks establish whether it applies to this case.

**3. Choose the next step**

The workflow may continue with an agent step, run a saved procedure, or ask a person for input or review. Connector writes require exact-request approval by default. An organization admin can explicitly allow selected channel endpoints to run without approval.

**4. Carry out permitted work**

The agent uses its own configured connections and credentials. It remains subject to organization, channel, and workflow tool policy. If the needed operation requires local access or an unsupported tool, it hands the work to an operator with the evidence gathered so far.

**5. Verify the result**

The agent reads back the state and checks the workflow's success criteria. It can wait for a later check when a change takes time. If verification fails, the configured retry or escalation path keeps the case from being reported as resolved without evidence.

**6. Respond or hand off**

The agent sends the customer update and changes the ticket through the configured help-desk or mail connection, under its write policy. When it cannot finish, it records the findings and next required action for a human. Completing a Studio task does not by itself close an external ticket.

**7. Review and improve**

Your team reviews the result in Outcomes, corrects mistakes, and retains useful lessons with the right audience. Org Brain facts, reusable procedures, and agent workflow improvements have different review paths; see [How agents learn](https://altostrat.io/docs/studio/en/agent-learning.md).

For a complete example with integration and verification steps, use [Run the full support loop](https://altostrat.io/docs/studio/en/support-loop.md).

## Understand what is running

| Term | What it means |
| - | - |
| **Agent** | The reusable job definition: instructions, workflow, tools, connections, and limits. Studio also calls it a digital worker. |
| **Task or run** | One execution of that job, such as one incoming support case. Some screens and records call it a work item. |
| **Workflow step** | One part of the job, performed by an agent, a saved procedure, or a person. |
| **Human task** | A specific question, approval, or other decision that a person needs to resolve. |
| **Org Brain** | The knowledge layer supplying permitted evidence and reviewed lessons. It does not grant tool access or permission to act. |

The agent's availability and a task's progress are separate. **Draft**, **Active**, **Paused**, and **Archived** describe the agent. A task can be queued, running, waiting, completed, failed, or canceled. Pausing new intake does not undo a change already sent to an external system.

## Waiting is part of the workflow

| What the task needs | What happens next |
| - | - |
| A person's answer or approval | It preserves its progress and continues when the required human tasks are resolved. A rejected action is not executed. |
| Time for a change or dependency | A durable wait resumes the same task later. A recurring schedule starts new tasks. |
| Budget, credits, or permitted model access | It shows a waiting reason. An authorized person resolves the cause and uses the available resume or override action. |
| Work outside its tools or responsibility | The workflow asks a person or ends with a documented escalation. |

Cloud agents continue while the desktop is closed. Follow tasks in the agent's **Tasks** view and inspect **Activity** and **Review** inside a task. Use **Work → My approvals** or the desktop inbox for decisions. See [AI support agents](https://altostrat.io/docs/studio/en/digital-workers.md) for detailed controls and recovery.

## Where Org Brain fits

Workers search organization-visible evidence. People can also retrieve channel evidence they are authorized to see. A completed run report and a learned channel fact stay in that channel; they do not automatically become knowledge for every agent or customer.

Share an operating lesson organization-wide only when that audience is appropriate. Keep customer-specific details in their intended scope, and always verify changing facts against the live system. See [Org Brain](https://altostrat.io/docs/studio/en/org-brain.md) for sources, consent, citations, and knowledge review.

> **[Build your first support agent](https://altostrat.io/docs/studio/en/digital-workers.md)**
>
> Configure the job, connections, triggers, workflow, and limits.

> **[Learn from completed work](https://altostrat.io/docs/studio/en/agent-learning.md)**
>
> Turn evidence into useful knowledge and reviewed improvements.


This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.