AI engineering glossary · Agents tools MCP
What is HITL (human-in-the-loop)?
Human-in-the-loop (also called HITL): A design where a person reviews, approves or corrects an agent's work at defined points, especially before risky or irreversible actions. It trades some speed for safety and accuracy, and is common in finance, healthcare and legal uses.
Human-in-the-loop: an example
An agent drafts a customer refund of Rs 8,000 but waits for a support lead to click Approve before paying.
Related terms
More Agents tools MCP terms
- Human-on-the-loop
- Idempotency (tool calls)
- Indirect prompt injection
- Interrupt (agent)
- JSON-RPC
- Kill switch
- LangChain
- LangGraph
Where you learn it
Human-in-the-loop is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.