Approving what your AI agent does

How approvals work

When an agent is connected with permission to read and act, some of its changes can wait for you before they happen. Instead of running, the action becomes a request. The agent is told that it is waiting for your approval, and you decide in Metaintro.

Reading never needs approval. Approvals only apply to changes.

Choose your approval setting

You'll find the setting under Approvals in Settings > Agents, and on the My AI agents tab of each organization's settings. It is one setting for all your agents, personal and organization, in every place you've connected them.

Don’t ask (default): permitted changes, messages and deletions run as soon as your agent asks. Nothing waits for you.
Ask for sensitive actions: messages, deletions, access changes and bulk exports wait for you. Everyday changes, like saving a job or logging a check-in, run right away.
Ask before every change: every change waits for you, including chats with your Metaintro assistant and Cabinet requests.

Changing the setting doesn't affect requests that are already waiting.

A note on "Don’t ask"

"Don’t ask" is convenient, but it means an agent can send messages and delete things as soon as it decides to. AI agents can misunderstand a request. If your agent can send messages to job seekers or delete records, consider Ask for sensitive actions. Your AI app may also ask you before it calls Metaintro; that is a separate check, controlled in the app.

Why a request is waiting

Each request shows why it was held:

Deletes something: removes or clears a record, such as a saved job or a note, or starts your profile fresh.
Sends a message: sends something to another person, such as a message to a job seeker, a job card, approved replies or a share link.
Changes access: changes someone's role or access, or turns automatic sending on or off.
Exports records: exports many records at once, such as a member list or an audit log.
Your approval setting: held only because you chose Ask before every change. With another setting, it would have run right away.

Approve or decline a request

Open Settings > Agents for requests from your personal connection, or the My AI agents tab in your organization's settings for requests made through that organization's connection. Each page lists only its own requests.
Find the request under Waiting for your approval. You'll see which agent asked, when, and why it is waiting. Open What it will do to see the details.
Select Approve to run it, or Decline to stop it.

When you approve, the action runs right away as you. Metaintro checks your access again at that moment, so if you no longer have permission, it won't happen. If the agent that asked has since been disconnected or lost permission to make changes, nothing runs.

If an approved action fails, you'll see "Approved, but the action failed. Your agent can see why." The agent can look up the request and read the reason.

Request statuses

Waiting: needs your decision.
Running: approved and in progress.
Done: approved and completed.
Failed: approved, but it didn't complete.
Declined: you declined it.
Lapsed: no one decided within 7 days, so it never ran.

Past decisions appear under Earlier requests.

Agents can't approve their own requests

Approving and declining happen only in Metaintro, signed in as you. An agent cannot approve or decline anything, even its own request, and it cannot change your approval setting. All it can do is check a request's status to find out what happened.

For AI agents: when a change is held

A held change returns the status waiting_for_approval and a request id. Nothing has happened yet.
Tell the person where to decide: Settings > Agents for a personal connection, or the My AI agents tab in the organization's settings for an organization's connection.
Check the outcome with get_action_request and the request id. Don't send the same change again while it waits.
You can't approve, decline or change the approval setting. Never try to work around a held change.