Definition
Unattended execution means an agent runs on a schedule or trigger with nobody present to watch it, approve its steps, or intervene.
In practice
Unattended is about when the agent runs, not how much it decides. An agent can be unattended and tightly scripted, or attended and highly autonomous, and confusing the two is how people end up granting broad permissions they did not intend. Running unattended needs four things: a host that stays up without a person, credentials scoped to only what the job requires, a hard spend ceiling that stops rather than warns, and actions that are either reversible or gated behind an approval. The useful test is what happens if the agent fires wrongly at 3am and nobody notices until Monday.
Example
An agent triages a support inbox every thirty minutes, overnight included. It can read every message and draft replies, but sending is gated behind approval, its mailbox credential cannot delete anything, and a monthly cap pauses it at the limit. When a malformed email sends it into a retry loop at 2am, the cap stops it, and the morning review finds a paused agent and a clear log rather than a bill or a damaged mailbox.
Common questions about unattended execution
Is unattended execution the same as full autonomy?
No. Unattended execution describes when an agent runs, with nobody watching, while autonomy describes how much it decides for itself. A tightly scripted agent can run unattended, and a highly autonomous one can be watched step by step. Mixing the two up is how broad permissions get granted by accident.
What does an agent need before it runs unattended?
Unattended execution needs four things: a host that stays up without a person, credentials scoped to exactly the job, a spend ceiling that stops the agent instead of sending a warning, and actions that are either reversible or gated behind a human approval. Missing any one turns a quiet failure into an expensive one.
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