I built an agent to prepare my weekly inventory order
I’m Johannes (Hans) Holdiman. I built this workflow around a recurring job in cinema operations: turning current stock counts into a supplier cart I can review. The agent does the preparation. I make the purchasing decision and submit the order.
What it does
The agent uses a current Jacro stock report, my approved order guide, and verified units per case to calculate replenishment. It checks the live Vistar catalog, fills the real browser cart, saves it, and reads it back before handing it to me. This is a working internal operations project, not a fictional demo or an invented customer testimonial.
What has been exercised
Secure supplier-account login, real cart population, saving, and reload/fresh-login readback have been exercised. Supplier shortages are reported separately: a saved cart does not mean every item is available or that delivery is guaranteed.
The weekly handoff
The configured plan uses Thursday-evening stock reports, Friday preparation at 6:00 a.m., and a Friday review notification at 10:00 a.m., Central time. The upstream report-email setup and the first fresh-report scheduled run are still pending verification. I do not describe that whole weekly pipeline as proven yet.
My actual guardrails
- I submit the purchase. The agent may prepare and save the cart. It stops before Submit or Place Order. I review, edit, approve, and submit it myself.
- Fresh stock or a blocked run. Each weekly run requires the latest Thursday stock report. Missing or stale stock, unknown incoming deliveries, or failed browser access means a clear exception, not guessed quantities.
- Each source has one job. Jacro supplies on-hand counts. My approved guide supplies pars and item references. The inventory workbook supplies sellable units per case. Blank cells and formula zeros are not measured inventory.
- Units must reconcile. Usable stock in Inventory and Non-Saleable is combined under my operating rule. Case and individual-unit quantities must match; cheese portions require verified net ounces and bags per case.
- Live products, honest shortages. The agent checks current item numbers, case packs, prices, availability, and pending deliveries. It flags shortages and proposed substitutions rather than quietly changing products. An expected supplier PO date is not a delivery promise.
- The minimum is visible. Vistar has a $1,000 minimum. Required replenishment is separated from additions to meet it. I permit modest whole-case top-ups when roughly $100–$200 short, using real prices and storage/shelf-life limits. I prefer small tubs over medium tubs for these additions. That permission does not authorize purchase submission or unavailable substitutions.
- Protect the shared cart. The agent reads the existing cart before editing, preserves other people’s work, and asks before clearing or replacing it. Retries must not duplicate lines. It saves and reads back quantities, prices, stock warnings, and subtotal before handoff.
- Checkpoint before a browser reset. When browser resource usage approaches three-quarters of its process limit, the agent checkpoints the work and verifies server-side saving before resetting only its own browser. It reopens and reads the cart before resuming.
- “Done” needs evidence. A calculation or spreadsheet is not a prepared supplier cart. If saving or verification fails, the run stays blocked or unfinished. I do not publish invented savings, fulfillment guarantees, or reliability percentages.
The same approach for your business
We start with one recurring task, define the data it needs, and agree on exactly where the agent must stop for a person. You do not need to hand over purchasing authority to get useful help.