wizard

Wizard

A step a human must perform manually is exactly the kind of task an SOP (standard operating procedure) exists to make consistent: detailed, sequential instructions so the task comes out the same way regardless of who runs it or how many times it's been explained before. This skill's defining constraint: a wizard only contains steps genuinely gated on human authority or judgment; anything the agent can do itself belongs in the agent's own work, not in a script that stops to ask a human to do it.

Phase 1: Scope to human-only steps

Before writing anything, separate the procedure into what the agent can do directly and what actually requires a human: clicking through a third-party dashboard with no API, entering credentials only the human holds, or confirming an action with real-world consequence (a production cutover, an irreversible migration step). Only the second category belongs in the wizard. A wizard padded with steps the agent could have just done is friction added for no reason; it exists specifically for the steps that can't be delegated.

Phase 2: One verifiable action per step

Following SOP discipline, each step is a single, unambiguous action, not a paragraph the human has to parse into sub-steps themselves:

• State exactly what to do: which URL to open, which button to click, which value to copy.
• State the expected outcome, so the human can tell they did it right before moving on, not just that they did something.
• Never bundle two decisions into one step: a step that says "configure X and also decide Y" is two steps wearing one number.
• Write each instruction without em dashes: use a comma, colon, period, or a reworded sentence instead.

Phase 3: Capture and persist immediately

When a step produces a value the rest of the procedure needs (an API key, a generated ID, a URL), capture it right there and write it to where it actually belongs (.env, a secrets store, a config file) rather than holding it in the script's memory for a later step to use. A value captured but not yet persisted is lost the moment the script or the human's session ends; persisting immediately makes the procedure resumable, not just recorded.