Every company has procedures. Few apply them. They sit in a shared folder, written on a day of good intentions, never reread, already wrong six months later. When someone prepares a quote or launches a project, they do what they have always done.
AI changes the game, on one condition: that the procedure is read at the moment of the operation. That is what MCP makes possible, and it is the system we set up at Codito before offering it to our clients.
The principle: the procedure is read before acting
An SOP (standard operating procedure) describes how to carry out a recurring operation: preparing a quote, starting a project, delivering, invoicing, handling an incident. At Codito, an AI agent dedicated to processes checks, before every operation of this kind, which procedure is in force, reads it and applies it. If no procedure exists, it flags this instead of improvising.
MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the cable that makes this possible: it connects the AI assistant to the base where the procedures live, with precise rights. People benefit too: anyone can query the procedures, or suggest a change, from their own assistant, with personal access.
A procedure is a structured entry
For AI to use it, a procedure cannot be a long free-form document. At Codito, each procedure is an entry with:
- a code and a title;
- a domain (sales, project, invoicing, contractors);
- an owner, who answers for it;
- a trigger: the event that sets it in motion;
- an expected proof: what shows it has been applied;
- a frequency and a last review date;
- a status: published (in force), to review, draft, archived. Only a published procedure is authoritative.
Two rules prevent bloat: a procedure is born from a real incident or a desired outcome, never from theory; and a procedure that nobody checks dies.
The three checkpoints that keep the system alive
- Before every operation: the agent reads the procedure in force and applies it.
- Every Friday: an audit counts the operations carried out without a procedure, the missing proofs and the procedures to review. Our main indicator is simple: the number of operations carried out without a procedure during the week, with a target of zero.
- Every Monday: a meeting of a few minutes settles what the audit raised, with an owner and a deadline for each action.
Incidents have their own register: each one is described, analysed, and leads either to a correction of a procedure or to a new procedure.
Internal and contractors: two separate spaces
Some procedures concern your contractors: how they deliver, what they document, how they invoice. We keep them in a separate space that invited contractors can read, while internal procedures, project sheets and audits remain reserved for the team. One interface, separate rights.
Setting it up in an SME
- List ten recurring operations that are costly when they are done badly.
- Write one entry per operation, short, with an owner, a trigger and an expected proof.
- Store them in a base accessible through a simple interface and through MCP.
- Connect the company's AI assistant with read access, and give it one instruction: read the procedure before acting.
- Schedule the Friday audit, even a short one. Without it, everything else crumbles.
This system is one part of the company second brain and of its AI governance. Codito Ergo Sum sets it up with the business leaders it supports, as part of the AI Partnership, and runs it for organisations where AI has become critical with the Enterprise Partnership. To talk it through: 30 minutes with the founder.
