Show and tell: a check_work function tool — my ADK agent can't call its work "done" until it's been reviewed

[Fikpeze123]

Hi — I'm Frank, founder of Pactlyst.ai (built with AI help, openly). Sharing a small tool I give my ADK agents, because the failure it fixes is one I suspect is common here.

My research agent produces a short customer migration plan: sources in, a tidy document out. The plan read beautifully. It also promised a data-residency term we'd never agreed to — fluent, confident, and wrong in a way nobody caught, because the last step in the agent was "return the document." Now the last step is a tool call:

def check_work(work_text: str, work_type: str, ask: str) -> dict:
    """Check finished work before it is treated as done.

    Returns a score, a verdict (low_risk / needs_review / high_risk),
    the gate state, and a signed receipt link.
    """
    # POST https://api.pactlyst.ai/functions/v1/work-check
    # Authorization: Bearer $PACTLYST_KEY
    # {"work_text": work_text, "work_type": work_type,
    #  "ask": ask, "requesting_agent": "adk-migration-agent"}

root_agent = Agent(
    name="migration_agent",
    tools=[check_work],  # + the tools that do the work
    # instruction: after drafting, call check_work with the draft,
    # the work type, and the original ask. Report the verdict with
    # the document. Never present held work as cleared.
)

The check reads the artifact against playbooks for its kind — documents, code, and software work all go through this one door — and grades it against the ask it was given, line by line. The gate is the part that matters in production: Low risk proceeds; Needs review waits for a named human to acknowledge the findings; High risk waits for a named approver who isn't the requester. Either way the call returns a signed PactCheck Receipt™ and a public receipt URL you can attach to the session's output, so the artifact travels with its proof. The artifact text itself is never stored — hash and counts only.

This is not an official ADK integration — it's a function tool wrapping one HTTP call, with a free key. ADK agents that prefer MCP can reach the same check as a check_work tool on Pactlyst's MCP server.

I'm opening a few design-partner spots for agent builders — three months of Pro free. Docs at pactlyst.ai/docs. And a real question for this board: do you gate your agents' final artifacts today, and if so, with what?

— Frank