Approvals

Decide how much a bot can do without asking you first.

Choose a mode

Open Settings → Approvals and pick an Approval mode:

Ask me: the bot asks before any action that changes something outside its own computer, such as sending an email or editing a shared document. Reading usually doesn't ask, and neither do files on its computer, its routines or notes it saves.
Auto review: an approval model checks each action against what you asked for. Actions that fit go ahead; the bot asks when one clearly goes beyond that and would be hard to undo, such as messaging someone you didn't mention, spending money, deleting or publishing. If the review can't run, the action waits for you.
Never ask: every action runs without waiting.

New accounts start on Auto review. It needs an Approval model: Opisense Cloud includes one, and on your own server you set it in Settings → Models (see Models). Without one, actions wait for you as in Ask me. How approvals work under the modes sums up the one you picked.

Tip

Start with Ask me or Auto review. As you approve the same action again and again, choose Always allow this tool on the card and the bot stops asking for that one.

Approval cards

When a bot needs a yes, it posts a card in the chat showing exactly what it wants to do:

Allow once: just this time.
Always allow this tool, or Always allow a site: stop asking for it.
Deny: the bot doesn't do it and carries on.

When a bot wants to send an email, the card shows the message as it will go out. Choose Send or Discard. When it wants to change its own instructions, Update instructions? shows the change; choose Apply, Edit or Dismiss.

Cards never block the chat. Keep talking to the bot, and answer the card whenever you're ready. You get a notification when a bot is waiting on you, if notifications are on in the bot's settings.

Routines ask the same way: a run nobody is watching posts its card, notifies you, and waits. A card still unanswered after 4 hours sends a reminder, and after 24 hours the run stops with Stopped. This was still waiting for an answer. For a routine that must run unattended, choose Always allow this tool for the actions it needs, or add a rule below.

Saved rules

Every Always allow choice is saved under Saved rules in Settings → Approvals. To add one before a bot ever asks, choose Add rule, pick a Tool, an App (such as gmail) or a Site, choose Allow or Block, and Save rule. This works on web, desktop and mobile.

Switch a rule between Allow and Block at any time. A blocked action is refused without a card, in every mode. Each rule's options menu has Preview change, to test what the rule would do for a tool before you change it, and Remove rule.

To stop one bot from ever using a tool, open the bot's Advanced settings and use Disable a tool under Tools.

What always asks

In Auto review and Ask me, these always show a card, and neither the approval model nor an Allow rule skips it:

Creating a space, learning a knowledge source, and saving the design system.
Changing the instructions or model of another bot it manages.
Every action that changes something in a routine run started by a webhook, a Git event or a Slack message.
A routine that watches a command, or that names a site the run found in outside content.
Reading your saved delivery address when someone else started the run or outside content entered it.

A bot changing its own model, thinking or voice in a chat you started applies at once and shows Undo. Runs started by someone or something else can't change those.

Never ask runs all of them, with two exceptions it refuses when someone else started the run or outside content entered it: reading your delivery address, and accepting another owner's bot connection. A bot's first command on your own computer asks in every mode.

Per space

Approval settings are account defaults that every space follows. To give one space different rules, open its settings and choose Customize next to Approvals.

In a team space, each person's own settings apply to the runs they start, including in chats with shared bots. An admin can't set them for everyone. See What's shared in a team space.