Check a Legal Draft before Use
Decide whether a draft is ready for its intended recipient, or record the work still needed.
What changed since this was written
- Material under review must not become the reviewer’s instructions
Codex Action guidance clarified that instruction files inside proposed changes are untrusted material, even when named
AGENTS.md.Recommended action: If your team uses AI to review GitHub changes, ask the maintainer where its trusted instructions come from. Review instructions inside submitted files as content, not commands to follow.
Sources: Codex Action PR instruction security clarification, Claude Code Action simplified prompt guardrails, Claude Code Action non-user actor handling
- GitHub preview lets teams describe automated tasks in writing
This May catch-up entry covers February’s Agentic Workflows preview, which turns written task instructions into GitHub automations with limited permissions.
Recommended action: If your team trials this, agree what starts the task and what it may change. Have the maintainer demonstrate those limits in a test project before using working files.
Sources: GitHub MCP Server changelog, GitHub Agentic Workflows technical preview, Copilot code review agentic architecture, Agentic Workflow configs in Actions run summary, OpenAI Codex Automations, Claude Code GitHub Actions, Claude Code hooks
Keep the final draft, source packet and agreed instructions together, and record the intended recipient. This checklist produces a review record, not an automatic approval. Apply it to the actual final version, including attachments.
Checks before use
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Confirm names, amounts, dates, quotations and material legal propositions against the sources. Check jurisdiction, document version and missing evidence; a plausible citation is not verification.
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Check completeness against the instructions, then inspect numbering, cross-references, tracked changes, comments and the final exported document. A correct paragraph can still sit in the wrong version or attachment.
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Confirm that the tool, data and recipient are authorized for this matter. Use only necessary information. Record remaining issues, responsible reviewer and approval for the specific version before sharing or filing.
Synthetic worked example and correction
Synthetic example: the approved draft changes only section 8, but the exported attachment also changes governing law. Approval of the earlier draft does not cover this file. Reject the extra change, compare the corrected export with the original and obtain review of that version.