HomeResearch LibraryDescribe, Explain, Plan and Select: Interactive Plannin…
Chapter 2 · 2023

Describe, Explain, Plan and Select: Interactive Planning with Large Language Models

Zhengyuan Yang, Linjie Li, Jianfeng Wang

Abstract

DEPS (Describe, Explain, Plan and Select) is an interactive planning approach for embodied agents that decomposes complex tasks into manageable subtasks with explicit explanation steps.

Eigenvector Insight — Zone III / PASF-PADE AnalysisNot part of the original paper
Eigenvector Research — Marco van Hurne
How this paper contributes to solving the Zone III problem (PASF-PADE)

The 'Explain' step in DEPS is the most important for Zone III. When an agent must articulate why it is taking an action before taking it, two things happen: errors are caught earlier, and the audit trail becomes meaningful. Enterprise governance requires explainability — not as a post-hoc rationalization, but as a real-time constraint on agent behavior. DEPS shows this is architecturally achievable.

Why AI is not sufficient for Zone III without this

Zone III refers to high-complexity, high-risk, long-running agentic workflows — the class of enterprise AI deployments where a single failure can cascade across hundreds of steps. Standard AI models, trained to predict the next token, are not inherently designed for durable, governed, multi-step execution. This paper addresses one or more of the structural gaps that make Zone III deployments unsafe without explicit architectural intervention.

Topics

interactive planningtask decompositionexplanationembodied AI