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The escalation agent is an autonomous internal agent deployed to Slack or another team channel. It receives structured triage questions from a workflow, posts them to reviewers, and returns a structured answer to the originating run. Use a Duckie Assistant agent for reporting, run review, and improving Duckie behavior. Do not use a Duckie Assistant agent as the real-time escalation agent for ticket triage.

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What It Does

The escalation and handoff function:
  • Sends low-confidence classification or routing questions to an internal channel
  • Gives reviewers the ticket link, customer context, recommendation, and reason for escalation
  • Collects reviewer decisions in thread
  • Converts the reply into structured output for the workflow
  • Writes a concise handoff note for the assigned team
  • Records escalation reason, reviewer decision, and final route for analytics
NeedDuckie component
Human collaborationAutonomous internal agent
Internal channelSlack integration
Structured request and responseWorkflow node or custom tool contract
Review routing and tagging decisionsSupport triage reviewers
Audit trailRuns and ticket internal notes

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Flow

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When to Escalate

Escalate when:
  • Classifier confidence is below the threshold
  • The ticket has multiple plausible intents
  • A high-value or priority customer is involved
  • The customer is angry, at churn risk, or repeatedly contacting support
  • The ticket may involve security, privacy, legal, or trust and safety concerns
  • The recommended route would trigger an expensive or sensitive downstream workflow
  • Required context is missing or conflicting
  • A helpdesk writeback tool fails repeatedly

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Request Format

Each escalation should include:
  • Ticket ID and source link
  • Customer segment and support tier
  • Short ticket summary
  • Recommended intent, tags, route, and priority
  • Confidence score and reason for uncertainty
  • Relevant recent context
  • Allowed reviewer responses
Example response contract: 
{
  "decision": "approved | changes_requested | manual_review",
  "primary_intent": "bug report",
  "route": "technical support",
  "priority": "high",
  "tags": ["bug_report", "dashboard"],
  "reviewer": "name or identifier",
  "comments": "Route to technical support and ask for browser console logs."
}

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Specialist Handoff

The handoff should make the next team faster, not just move the ticket. Include:
  • One-sentence customer problem
  • Customer context that affects handling
  • Intent, product area, urgency, and route
  • Missing information
  • Relevant links to account, order, product event, logs, or prior tickets
  • Why Duckie routed the ticket there
  • Suggested next action
For most teams, a good handoff note is more valuable than a perfect tag. It lets specialists trust the route and continue without rereading the whole thread.

Slack

Connect Duckie to the internal review channel.

Escalation Rules

Define when tickets should be routed to humans.

Deployment Modes

Test escalation behavior before live use.

Runs

Inspect the escalation trail for each ticket.