ManyChat AI Agent

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ADR-0017 — The agent may write bounded free-text notes that no flow renders ​

Status: accepted · Date: 2026-10-02

Context ​

012 § Free-text field values are refused limited set_field to configured enum values, for two reasons: a free-text write puts unvalidated model output into a field a ManyChat flow may later render to the contact, which bypasses C3; and it invites the model to copy the contact's own words, names and phone numbers included, into the CRM.

ADR-0015 removes the human from most of the sale, and with them the person who used to remember why a lead was interested and what held them back. An enum cannot hold that. "Wants to work from home but is worried about the schedule" is the useful sentence, and no tenant can list it in advance.

The reflexive option is to keep 012's rule and widen the enums. Its case: nothing unvalidated ever reaches the CRM, and an enum is trivially safe to render. It was turned down because the enums that would capture motivation and objections either grow without bound or collapse to other, which tells the human nothing.

Decision ​

The agent may write free text only to a fixed set of note fields that the tenant declares are never rendered to the contact, with the length capped and contact identifiers stripped before the write.

Consequences ​

  • Enum fields keep 012's rule. Free text is a separate kind of field in tools.json, so it cannot be enabled by mistake on an existing field.
  • Cost: C3 now holds only by the tenant's word. Nothing in this repository can see whether a ManyChat flow renders a note field, so a tenant who builds one that does sends model output to a contact unchecked. 024 says so rather than claiming a check it cannot make.
  • Cost: notes can carry PII the stripping misses: a name, a town, a health detail. They are redacted from logs and from the turns.actions record (C5), but they do reach the tenant's CRM, which is outside this service's control.
  • Revisit if a note is ever found rendered to a contact, or if the stripping is found to let a phone number or email through on a real conversation. Either means the enum-only rule comes back.