Approvals

Approvals is the one inbox for decisions waiting on you. It collects everything an AI wants to do that needs a person's say-so, and every question an AI team has paused to ask you.

Screenshot placeholderApprovals

The page is titled Approvals: "Review agent actions before they execute — and answer the decisions your teams paused on." When something is waiting, a pill reads N pending.

How it differs from nearby pages

Open Approvals

Click Approvals in the left sidebar. Its description reads "Decisions waiting on you, across every Force", and it is open to every Nexus user. A number badge shows how many items are waiting (it shows "99+" above 99, and nothing at zero).

Screenshot placeholderApprovals · Sidebar

You can also arrive from:

• The Review in Approvals button on the Nexus Home banner and in a Force's Needs you area.
• Approval messages sent to you in Slack or Teams.
• Older links such as /approvals, /user-space/approvals and /desktop/approvals, which all redirect here.

The Pending tab

When nothing is waiting you see "All caught up — No approvals are waiting for your response." Otherwise items are grouped, in this order:

Team Decisions

Your AI team paused here rather than guess.

1. Read the question

   The card shows the question, and sometimes a work product such as a draft to approve. The caption reads "(Force name) · your team paused here rather than guessing".

2. Check where the choices came from

   A note may say "Your team wrote these choices for this case." or "Standard choices — your team could not draft case-specific ones for this case."

3. Answer

   Click one of the answer buttons, whose labels are written by the team (none is called "Approve"). Or type in "Reply in your own words" and click Send. If you type text and click an option, both are sent.

   Screenshot placeholderApprovals · Team decision

4. See it resume

   A toast says "Answer sent — (Force name) is resuming." Your answer is saved as a precedent for similar cases.

Dismiss and end the case stops the whole job instead of answering. You are asked "Dismiss this decision?" and told that nothing after the paused step will run. Re-run the case to try again. A toast says "Decision dismissed".

If someone already answered, you see an error. Reload to check. A note typed with no option, on a step that needs one, is refused with an explanation, and your note is kept.

Desktop Actions

A desktop assistant wants permission for one action.

• The card shows the action (or "Run (capability)"), the capability name, how long it has waited, and an Input preview with More / Less.
• Approve works at once ("Task approved — executing now.").
• Reject opens a small form: Rejection reason (optional) ("e.g. Not authorised for this path"), then Confirm Reject, or Cancel. A toast says "Task rejected."
• Some requests show a countdown, Auto-reject in (N)s, turning red under 30 seconds, then "Auto-rejecting…".

Desktop Runs

A desktop task with several steps wants to start. The card says "Wants to run a multi-step task" and shows the goal.

• Before approving you can change the Preset: Read only, Workspace write or Full access, and the Root path (it must not be empty).
• Approve ("Run approved — starting now.") or Reject with an optional reason ("Run rejected.").
• If it has expired, the card is dimmed: "Approval expired — start the run again."

Agent Action Requests

This is the most common group. An AI wants to change something in a connected system, such as sending an email or deleting a file, and Manual mode made it wait.

1. Scan the card

   The card shows an icon, a title, a label like "Outlook · Send Mail", the first few details (such as To and Subject) and a short preview. A red Irreversible badge marks actions that cannot be undone, and Affects your environment marks workflow, file-transfer or database changes.

2. Open the preview

   Click the card to open a dialog with every field, the full email text or exact SQL, and a warning for destructive actions: "This action cannot be undone. Check the details below before approving."

   Screenshot placeholderApprovals · Action preview

3. Approve or reject

   Click the green approve button (red for destructive actions) or Reject. The dialog closes. There is no box for a rejection reason.

4. Read the result

   A toast tells you what happened: for example "Sent!" or "Deleted!", "Approved, but it FAILED: (reason)", or "Rejected — nothing was done."

The approve button names the action. Typical labels:

What else you may see

• Emails show the subject, recipients and the full message text. File attachments are listed by name only. You cannot preview their contents.
• Excel changes show a grid preview with row and column counts.
• Database changes show the Exact SQL, and note when "This engine commits DDL immediately — it cannot be rolled back."
• Workflow runs list what the run will affect, such as "Affects your environment — this run:".
• A notice "This build has no executor registered for this action type. Approving it will fail without changing anything." means the action cannot be performed. Report it instead of approving.

Destructive actions and environment-level actions always wait for you, even in Bypass mode.

Workflow Approvals

These come from a workflow's human-approval step. The card is meant to show a title, the workflow name, an expiry time, a description and Approve / Reject buttons.

The Actioned tab

Switch to Actioned to see what you already decided.

• Desktop decisions come first: "(N) desktop action(s) decided", each with a tick or cross, the action, and a word such as approved, rejected, timed out, auto approved or auto rejected.
• Other actions follow: "(N) action(s) decided", newest first, as cards without buttons. Click one to open it read-only, and read Decided (time) and, if it failed, the reason.
• There are no filters, columns or paging. Empty: "No history yet — Decided approvals will appear here."

What the result badge means

Who can decide

Decisions made from Slack or Teams follow the same rule: "Only the person this approval belongs to can decide it."

Counts and refreshing

• The N pending number adds up five sources: team decisions, desktop actions, desktop runs, agent action requests and workflow approvals. Items are not de-duplicated.
• The Pending tab refreshes about every 15 seconds. The sidebar badge refreshes about every 30 seconds. Desktop lists refresh about every 10 seconds.
• The badge updates as soon as you decide an item.
• While loading you see two grey blocks.

Things to know

Related pages

• Chat: Approvals
• Nexus Home
• My Work
• Agent Force
• Playbooks