Approvals
Some things an agent does are instantly reversible — reading your calendar, searching for a document. Others aren't: an email, once sent, is sent. For those, EnClaw pauses and asks a human first. That pause is an approval, and it's the reason you can hand real work to an agent without holding your breath.
Why some actions pause
Every action an agent can take is classified by your organisation into one of three buckets:
| Bucket | What happens | Typical examples |
|---|---|---|
| Allowed | Runs immediately | Reading email, searching JIRA, listing files |
| Needs approval | Pauses for a human yes/no | Sending email, creating or updating a JIRA issue, posting to Slack, creating calendar events |
| Blocked | Never runs | Whatever your organisation has ruled out entirely |
The pattern is simple: looking is free, acting on the world waits for sign-off. The agent does all the preparation — drafts the email, fills in the JIRA fields, writes the Slack post — and then stops at the threshold with its hand raised. You review exactly what would happen, then decide.
Which actions need approval is set by your organisation, so the exact list varies — but sending messages and creating things in external systems are almost always in the "needs approval" bucket.
What an approval request looks like
A request shows you the specifics, not just the category. For an email: the recipient, the subject, and the full draft. For a JIRA issue: the project, the summary, the details. You're approving a concrete thing, not a blank cheque.
Your options:
- Approve — the agent completes the action and confirms.
- Decline — the action is dropped; the agent moves on or asks what you'd like instead.
- Or just reply with changes — "approve, but cc Priya" or "change the subject line first". The agent revises and asks again.
Where approval requests arrive
Approvals come to you through whichever channels your organisation has switched on:
- Slack — a message with the details and buttons, usually right in the conversation where the work is happening. This is the smoothest path: you see the request in context and answer without leaving the thread.
- Web app — the Approvals page lists everything waiting on you. Handy as a catch-all if you missed a ping.
- Email — a notification with the request details.
- Push notification — a nudge on your device, where enabled.
The same request may reach you in more than one place; answering it anywhere resolves it everywhere.
Who gets asked?
Often it's simply you — you asked the agent to send the email, so you confirm it. For bigger-ticket actions, your organisation may route the request to someone else (a manager, a team owner) or require more than one person to agree. If your request seems to be waiting on somebody else, that's usually what's happening.
Timeouts — approvals don't wait forever
Every approval request has an expiry. If nobody answers in time, the request times out and the action is automatically declined — the safe default. (Depending on your organisation's setup, some requests may instead escalate to another approver before expiring.) Nothing sneaks through because someone was in a meeting.
If a request expires on you, no harm done: ask the agent again, and it will re-prepare the action and raise a fresh request.
Recipient whitelists, in plain terms
For outbound email and similar actions, your organisation can maintain a whitelist — a pre-approved list of addresses or domains that agents are allowed to send to. Think of it as a guest list on the door:
- Sending to someone on the list works normally (still with your approval, if the action requires one).
- Sending to someone off the list is refused outright — approval or not, the agent can't do it, and it will tell you so.
This protects everyone from the worst-case slip: an agent (or a mistyped request) firing company email at the wrong outside address. If you legitimately need to reach someone who isn't on the list, ask your admin to add them.
Living with approvals, comfortably
- Answer promptly when you can — a paused agent is holding your task open; a quick yes keeps things flowing.
- Read what you're approving. The whole point of the pause is the human glance. Ten seconds on the draft beats an apology email later.
- Declining is free. You're not scolding the agent — decline, say what you'd like different, and it goes again.
- A "stuck" agent is often a waiting agent. If a task seems stalled, check for an unanswered approval — in the conversation, or on the web app's Approvals page. More in Troubleshooting.
Approvals are also why generous connector permissions are less scary than they sound: even with send email enabled, nothing goes out the door without a human at the door.