What pipeline automation covers
Seven tools sit behind this: moving candidates between the pipeline's stages (new through hired or rejected), adding or removing tags, adding or removing flags, dropping an internal note visible only to your team, setting a numeric priority that sorts the board, rejecting with a reason, and pulling one candidate's full event timeline.
The move, tag, flag, note, priority, and reject tools all take a list of candidates and a description of the change, and all six require your approval before anything happens. Reading a timeline never does, since it changes nothing. Rejections are handled by their own tool rather than a generic stage move, specifically so a reason gets attached and the rejected-stage change never happens by accident.
A walkthrough: closing out a stale screening stage
An employer says: "move everyone who scored above 8 on technical to qualified, and tag anyone who mentioned Kubernetes as devops_track." The agent reads the screening stage for the relevant job, finds nine candidates clearing the technical bar, and separately checks which of those mention Kubernetes in their key skills.
It presents two approval cards in sequence: one to move the nine to qualified, listing the first three names plus a count of the rest, and a second to tag the subset that mentioned Kubernetes. The employer approves both.
A week later they follow up with "reject the four still sitting in screening below a 5, reason: underqualified," and the agent runs reject_candidates with that reason attached to each, then asks whether to draft a decline email for the four rather than sending one on its own.
Boundaries
What stays under your control
Nothing in this tool group changes a candidate's record without an approval card first, and that card names the candidates and the exact change before you confirm it. Every application id involved is checked against your own employer account; if a batch includes even one id that does not belong to you, the entire batch is aborted rather than partially applied.
A rejection never triggers an email by itself, the agent only offers to draft one after the fact. None of these tools, or the read-only overview and applicant list tools that usually feed them, ever return a candidate's email address or phone number, so the agent can act on scores and skills without handling contact details directly.
get_candidate_timeline is capped at 100 events per candidate, and returns them most recent first, so a long-running application still resolves to a readable answer rather than an overwhelming dump.
Frequently asked questions
Can the agent move candidates through the pipeline without my approval?
No. move_candidate_stage, tag_candidates, flag_candidates, add_candidate_note, set_candidate_priority, and reject_candidates all require an approval card describing who is affected and what changes before anything is written to your pipeline.
What happens if I ask the agent to act on a candidate who isn't actually mine?
Every candidate id in a batch is checked against your employer account before any change runs. If one id in the batch does not belong to you, the whole batch is stopped rather than partially completing.
Does rejecting a candidate through the agent send them an email automatically?
No. Rejecting moves the candidate to the rejected stage with a reason you specify. The agent will offer to draft a decline email afterward, but only sends one if you separately ask for it.
Can the agent tell me what has already happened to a specific candidate?
Yes. get_candidate_timeline returns that candidate's full event history, including stage changes, tags, flags, notes, ratings, and any screening rule matches, most recent first, capped at 100 events, with no contact information included.
What are the seven pipeline stages a candidate can move through?
New, screening, qualified, interviewing, offered, hired, and rejected, in that order by default, though the labels themselves can be customized. The agent is directed to use reject_candidates rather than a generic stage move for the rejected stage specifically, so a reason always gets attached to it.
Related pages
Clear a stale pipeline stage
Describe the group and the change to the agent, review the approval card, and confirm once it looks right.