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Human-in-the-Loop

Sometimes you want to review an agent’s output before the workflow continues. Gump supports pausing a run for human intervention.

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hitl: true

Add hitl: true to any step to pause after it executes: 
- name: decompose
  agent: claude-opus
  output: plan
  hitl: true
  prompt: "Decompose {spec} into items."
After the decompose step completes, Gump pauses and shows: 
[decompose]  ✓ plan: 3 items (claude-opus)
[decompose]  HITL — paused for human review

  Review the worktree at: .gump/worktrees/run-abc123/
  Resume: gump run --resume
  Abort:  Ctrl+C
You can inspect the plan, modify files in the worktree, or decide to abort. When you’re satisfied, resume: 
gump run --resume
The workflow continues from where it paused, with whatever changes you made to the worktree.

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—pause-after

Pause after a specific step without modifying the YAML: 
gump run spec.md --workflow tdd --pause-after decompose
Same behavior as hitl: true, but from the command line. Useful for debugging or one-off reviews without changing the workflow file.

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Manual intervention

While paused, you have full access to the worktree. You can:
  • Edit files the agent produced
  • Add files the agent missed
  • Modify the plan JSON in .gump/out/plan.json
  • Run your own tests or checks
  • Delete generated code and let the next step redo it
When you resume, Gump picks up from the current worktree state. Your manual changes become part of the run.

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When to use HITL

HITL is most valuable on the decompose step — the plan determines everything that follows. A bad decomposition leads to wasted agent work. Validating the plan manually before agents start building is the highest-leverage intervention point. HITL is less useful on implementation steps — if the gate (compile, test) passes, the code works. Human review is better handled by a review step in the workflow (see the Full Cycle and Adversarial Review workflows in the Playbook).