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Quick Start Part 2: Agentic Flows in 5 Minutes

Build an event-driven workflow that uses your protected tools with an AI agent.

Prerequisites

Complete Part 1: Safety Layer first to set up your account, policies, and protected tools.

What You'll Accomplish

  • ✅ Configure an AI model for your flows
  • ✅ Create an automated payment processing flow
  • ✅ Trigger the flow and see the approval workflow in action
  • ✅ Learn how to trigger flows via webhooks

Step 1: Create Your AI Model (1 minute)

Flows need an AI model to execute tasks. Let's add one.

  1. Navigate to Flows in the left sidebar
  2. Click + Create Flow
  3. Click Create from Scratch (skip presets for now)
  4. In the AI Agent section, you'll see "No AI models configured yet"
  5. Click + Add AI Model

  6. Fill in:

    • Name: GPT-4o
    • Provider: OpenAI
    • Model: Select a model from the dropdown
    • API Key: Your OpenAI API key

  7. Click Create

Add AI Model Adding and configuring a new AI model for your automated flows

Don't Have an OpenAI Key?

Get one at platform.openai.com/api-keys. The free tier is sufficient for testing.

✓ Checkpoint: You now have an AI model configured!

Step 2: Create a Payment Approval Flow (2 minutes)

Let's create a flow that processes contract payments. If the amount exceeds your threshold, it will require approval.

Flow Scenario:

When triggered (manually or via webhook), the flow will:

  1. Receive payment details (recipient, amount, contract_id)
  2. Use the prelooped pay tool to send payment
  3. If amount exceeds the condition, require approval first
  4. Report the result

Create the Flow:

  1. You're already on the Create Flow page. Fill in:

Basic Info:

  • Name: Contract Payment Processor
  • Description: Process contract payments with approval for large amounts

Trigger:

  • Trigger Type: Select Webhook
  • (The webhook URL will be generated after creation)

AI Agent:

  • AI Model: Select the model you just created

  • Prompt: Enter this:

    You are a payment processor. Process the payment with these details:

Recipient: {{trigger_event.payload.recipient}}
Amount: ${{trigger_event.payload.amount}}
Contract ID: {{trigger_event.payload.contract_id}}

Use the pay tool to send the payment. The tool is configured with
an approval workflow - small amounts are auto-approved, larger amounts
require human approval.

After payment completes, report the status. Do not retry if declined.

Tools:

  • Ensure pay is checked

  • You can uncheck other tools if you want

  • Click Create at the bottom

Create Flow Creating an automated payment processor flow with AI model and approval-gated tools

✓ Checkpoint: Your flow is created!

Step 3: Test Your Flow (2 minutes)

Now let's trigger your flow and see the approval workflow in action!

Trigger the Flow:

  1. You should now be on the flow details page
  2. Click Enable to activate the flow (if not already enabled)
  3. Click Test Run
  4. You'll see a dialog asking for test values for the template variables

  5. Fill in:

    • trigger_event.payload.recipient: contractor@example.com
    • trigger_event.payload.amount: 1500 (above threshold!)
    • trigger_event.payload.contract_id: CONTRACT-2025-001

  6. Click Run Test

Test Flow Testing the flow with sample payment data - triggering the approval workflow

Watch the Execution:

You'll be redirected to the execution page where you can see the AI agent working:

  1. The agent will read your prompt
  2. It will attempt to call the pay tool with amount=$1500
  3. Because you prelooped pay earlier, you'll get an approval request!

Flow execution started Flow execution in progress - AI agent is processing the request

Flow waiting for approval Flow paused waiting for human approval before executing the payment

Approve the Payment:

You'll receive an email: "Approval Required: pay"

  1. Click Approve in the email, or:
  2. Approve from the web dashboard
  3. Approve from the mobile app
  4. Go back to the flow execution page
  5. Watch the agent complete the payment after your approval!

✓ Checkpoint: You've successfully run an automated flow with human approval!

Triggering via Webhook

Your flow has a unique webhook URL. You can trigger it from external services!

  1. Go back to your flow details page
  2. Find the Webhook URL section
  3. Copy the URL (looks like: https://preloop.ai/api/webhooks/flows/{flow_id}/{secret})

Test with curl:

curl -X POST 'YOUR_WEBHOOK_URL' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "recipient": "vendor@example.com",
    "amount": 500,
    "contract_id": "CONTRACT-2025-002"
  }'

This payment will execute WITHOUT approval because it's below the threshold!

Try with a larger amount:

curl -X POST 'YOUR_WEBHOOK_URL' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "recipient": "vendor@example.com",
    "amount": 2000,
    "contract_id": "CONTRACT-2025-003"
  }'

This one WILL require approval! 🛡️

🎉 Success! You've Built Safe Automation

Congratulations! You've just:

✅ Set up the Safety Layer - Protected a risky tool with policies (Part 1) ✅ Built an automated workflow - Created a flow with an AI agent ✅ Tested end-to-end - Triggered the flow, got approval request, watched it execute ✅ Learned webhook triggers - Can now trigger flows from external services

What's Next?

Learn the flow building blocks:

Go deeper on how flows are created, triggered, and executed:

  • Creating Flows - Build reusable AI-driven workflows
  • Flow Triggers - Understand webhooks and other trigger types
  • Flow Execution - Inspect status, history, and outcomes

Creating Flows → | Flow Triggers → | Flow Execution →

Advanced Approval Workflows:

Make approval smarter with conditional logic:

  • Approve only if environment == "production"
  • Different approvers for different amounts
  • Team-based approval with quorum (require 2 of 5 approvers)
  • Escalation chains

Conditional Approval (CEL) → | Team-Based Approvals →

Connect Your Own MCP Servers:

Preloop tools from ANY MCP server:

  • Deployment tools
  • Database operations
  • Cloud provider APIs
  • Your custom MCP servers

External MCP Tools →

📚 Learn More

Core Concepts:

Flows:

Advanced:

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