Procedures

Procedures are structured documents that encode repeatable company processes — expense reports, onboarding, content publishing, approvals — as executable state machines that your AI assistant can run.

The Idea

Every company has processes. "How do I submit an expense?" "What's the onboarding checklist?" "How do we evaluate a partnership?"

These processes usually live in someone's head, a stale wiki page, or a Slack thread that gets lost. Procedures turn them into structured documents that:

1. Humans can read — They're markdown, stored in Notion
2. AI can execute — The document IS the program
3. Access is controlled — Only authorized people see run data, with automatic handoffs between steps

How It Works

There is no rigid workflow engine. The AI discovers available procedures from the tool description, fetches a summary (input requirements, step names — no execution details), collects input from the user, starts a tracked run, then executes steps one at a time using Gateway tools — posting in Slack, creating Linear issues, updating Notion. The AI only ever sees the current step's instructions, never the full document. In-flight run data lives in an internal database behind code-enforced access control, keeping your data private during execution. On completion, everything exports to a Notion database under the procedure page where admins can browse it.

Example

Here's what running an expense report looks like after a business trip:

You: "I need to expense my Denver conference trip — $2,400 total.
      Flights were $680, hotel $1,200 for 3 nights, meals $320,
      ground transport $200. Receipts are in the Drive folder I shared."
 
AI: [finds expense-report procedure in catalog]
    [gets summary: needs expense, amount, category, receipt_url]
    [starts tracked run, gets first step instructions]
    [creates row in Expenses database: "travel: Denver conference trip — $2,400"]
    [logs step, advances → amount > $1,000, routes to COO]
    [posts approval request in #finance-approvals with receipt link]
    [DMs you: "Expense logged: $2,400. Routing to COO for approval."]
    [parks run — waiting for approval...]

No spreadsheet. No tracking down who needs to approve what. The procedure knows that $2,400 requires COO sign-off, posts in the right channel, and follows up if nobody responds in 48 hours.

Key Concepts

Getting Started

1. Use existing procedures — Ask your AI: "What procedures are available?" to see what's already set up
2. Author new ones — Follow the Authoring Guide to encode your processes
3. See examples — Browse real procedure examples for patterns

Categories

Procedures are organized by category: