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One call before anything is promised

Before an errand starts, your assistant asks Hence Assistant whether the errand is admissible at all, with whatever facts it already has. That call comes back one of two ways:
  • Admitted, with the list of inputs the errand still needs; or
  • Refused, naming the specific condition that fired.
This happens first, deliberately. An assistant that promises an errand and discovers three steps in that your situation was excluded has already cost you the worst thing it can cost you — the belief that it checked.

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What the check is actually made of

Each errand carries its own gate, written into the errand rather than invented per run. A gate is a small set of conditions that make the errand the wrong tool for your situation. For the errand that reads the rate on every debt you have, the outs are: you are being sued over one of these debts, you cannot cover this month’s minimum payments, every debt you have is already in collections or charged off, and these are your business’s debts rather than yours personally — each one a case where the right next move is not “read the rate”. Not every out is a refusal. An out can also route you somewhere else or let the errand proceed with a stated caveat; the rollover gate below uses all three. The gate for a 401(k) rollover is the widest in the set, because the thing you are asking about has the most ways to go wrong: an outstanding loan against the plan, company stock, Roth or after-tax money, your age relative to the thresholds that change the answer, and whether the money is in the plan of the job you currently hold.

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A refusal is information

A refusal names the clause. That matters for two reasons. It tells you whether the answer is wrong about you — gates run on stated facts, and a fact can be stale or mistaken. And it tells you what would have to change for the errand to become admissible. Refusal is also the honest answer when an errand needs an instrument Hence Assistant does not hold — a licence, a credential, an authority. In that case the refusal says which, rather than pretending the errand does not exist.

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Admitted is not started

Admission tells you the errand is the right tool. It does not start it, and it does not commit you. The reply also carries the inputs still required, so your assistant can gather them in conversation before anything opens a browser. Values Hence Assistant already holds are never asked for again. If your profile already carries the answer, the errand uses it.

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What happens next

An admitted errand becomes a task when your assistant starts it. From there it moves through the states described in task states, and any question it has reaches you through your assistant.