# What is Standard Operating Procedure?

Also called SOP, written procedure.

A standard operating procedure is a written, step by step description of how a recurring task is carried out, covering the inputs required, the order of steps, the decision points, and what to do when a case falls outside the normal path. Its purpose is to make a task repeatable by someone other than the person who invented it. It is the usual prerequisite for delegating work to anyone, software included.

The value of writing a procedure is that it forces implicit decisions into the open. Most recurring work contains judgment calls the person doing it makes without noticing: which record wins when two systems disagree, what counts as urgent, when to stop and ask. Writing the procedure surfaces those, which is frequently useful on its own, before any automation is considered.

For agents, the procedure is the raw material. It becomes the instruction set, the skill, or the checklist the agent follows, and its exception clauses become the escalation rules. Teams that already document their work tend to adopt agents quickly. Teams that do not usually spend the first weeks writing procedures, and discover that this was the real work all along.

Procedures go stale, which is their main failure mode. A procedure describing a system that was replaced last year will still be followed literally by software, where a person would have noticed and improvised. Anything an agent depends on needs a named owner and a review date, and a process change should update the procedure in the same pass.

Procedures feed skill libraries and agent templates, and they are what onboarding loads. They are distinct from workflow automation, which encodes steps in software so they execute identically every time. A procedure describes the steps in language and leaves some room for judgment in the doing, which is exactly why it suits both people and agents.

## Key points

- Written step by step, including exceptions and decision points
- Makes a task repeatable by someone other than its author
- Prerequisite for delegation, to people or to software
- Goes stale quietly, so it needs an owner and a review date

## In practice

A bakery writes down its wholesale order process: orders arrive by email before noon, quantities go into the production sheet, anything above forty units needs a confirming call, and anything from a new customer needs prepayment. Four steps and two exceptions on a single page. That page is what later lets an agent read the inbox and prepare the sheet, escalating exactly the two named cases.

## Related terms

- [Agent Onboarding](/en/glossary/agent-onboarding)
- [Agent Skill Library](/en/glossary/agent-skill-library)
- [Workflow Automation](/en/glossary/workflow-automation)
- [Task Delegation](/en/glossary/task-delegation)
- [Business Process Automation](/en/glossary/business-process-automation)

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