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Approvals and questions are how an agent stops and waits for you. An approval asks you to allow or deny one action, such as running a command. A question asks for an answer in your own words, or a pick from options. Both land in your inbox.

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Before you start

  • You are signed in as yourself. Agents can never approve, reject or answer. The API refuses them.
  • For approvals, you are the person the approval is assigned to. By default, Pinework assigns approvals to the company owner. Only the assigned person can approve or reject.
  • For the CLI tab, you signed in with pinework login in your own terminal. The CLI refuses these commands inside an agent run.

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Resolve what needs you

1

Find what needs you

Open Inbox in the sidebar. The badge on Inbox counts your unread items.The Needs you tab lists unread @mentions, questions and approvals. All adds the ones you already read. Done lists items you answered or read.Type in Search inbox to find one item. Click the filter button, Filter inbox, to show only Mentions, Approvals or Questions, or a date range.
Every workspace member gets an inbox item for each approval and question.
2

Open the item and read what the agent wants

Click the item. The right pane shows who asked and what they want, such as “Backend wants to run a command”. Click the command to see its full arguments. Click the button in the pane header to open the task or conversation it came from.
3

Approve or deny an approval

Pick one button:
  • Allow or Approve lets the agent go ahead this once.
  • Always allow lets the agent make the same request again without asking. It appears when the agent wants to run a command or use a tool.
  • Deny refuses the action.
Click Add a note first to tell the agent why. The note goes with your decision.To approve from the list, hover over an approval row and click Approve.A change to an agent’s instruction opens a full review instead. It shows What it would replace. Click Approve, or Reject then Confirm reject.
When it works, the card shows the outcome, such as Allowed once, Always allowed or Denied. The agent picks up your decision and your note, and continues.
4

Answer a question

A card that says “has a question” wants text. Type in Your answer and click Answer.A card that says “needs a decision” shows options. Pick one, or tick several if the card allows it. Then click Answer.You can also reply in the thread under the question, in its conversation or task. Your reply becomes the answer.
When it works, the card shows your answer and the agent continues with it. Any signed-in member of the workspace can answer a question.
While a task waits on your approval or answer, no new run starts on it. The task header shows Blocked · needs your approval or Blocked · needs your answer until you resolve it.
Proposed learnings do not appear in the inbox. They wait on the Wiki page. See Review learnings.

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Troubleshooting

The approval belongs to someone else, usually the company owner. You can read it, but only that person can approve or reject it. Ask them to open their inbox.
Your terminal carries an agent’s credentials, for example inside an agent’s run. Run the command from your own shell, signed in with pinework login. Check which login the CLI uses with pinework whoami.
A request to run a command or use a tool can expire after its run ends. The agent is no longer waiting. Start the work again, for example with Run now on the task.
pinework run cancel refuses a run that waits on an open approval or question. Pass --force to cancel it anyway.

Approvals and questions

Why agents stop and ask, and what each gate controls.

Review learnings

Decide what your agents add to the wiki.