approvals

name	approvals
description	You are about to take an action that affects the outside world, cannot be undone, or involves real people - and you have not yet received explicit permission. This includes: sending any email or message to a real person, deploying code to production, posting on social media, making a purchase or financial commitment, deleting files or data, merging a PR to main, or publishing anything publicly. Stop, create an approval, block your task, and notify the user. Do not proceed until you receive the approval decision in your inbox.
triggers	["need approval","create approval","request approval","approval needed","needs sign-off","needs permission","before deploying","before sending email","before deleting","before posting","external action","irreversible action","financial commitment","purchase","deploy to production","merge to main","send to real person","publish","approval workflow","pending approval","waiting for approval","check approvals","list approvals"]

Approvals

Before any external, irreversible, or high-stakes action - stop and create an approval. The user decides. You execute only after they approve.

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When to Use

Action type	Requires approval?
Sending emails to real people	YES
Deploying code to production	YES
Posting on social media	YES
Making financial commitments	YES
Deleting data (files, DB rows, records)	YES
Merging to main branch	YES
Any action visible to external parties	YES
Internal work (writing files, creating tasks, research)	NO

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Full Workflow

1. Create the approval

APPR_ID=$(cortextos bus create-approval \
  "<what you want to do>" \
  "<category>" \
  "<context: draft content, target, why needed>")
echo "APPR_ID=$APPR_ID"

Categories: external-comms | financial | deployment | data-deletion | other

2. Block your task on the approval

cortextos bus update-task "$TASK_ID" blocked
cortextos bus log-event task task_blocked info --meta "{\"task_id\":\"$TASK_ID\",\"blocked_by\":\"$APPR_ID\",\"reason\":\"awaiting approval\"}"

3. Notify the user

cortextos bus send-telegram "$CTX_TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID" \
  "Approval needed: <title> - check dashboard or reply to approve/reject"

4. Wait for inbox notification

When the user decides, you receive an inbox message:

approval_id: appr_xxx
decision: approved | rejected
note: <user's note>

5. Act on the decision

Approved:

# Unblock task
cortextos bus update-task "$TASK_ID" in_progress "Approval received - executing"
# Execute the action
# Complete the task
cortextos bus complete-task "$TASK_ID" --result "<what was done>"

Rejected:

cortextos bus complete-task "$TASK_ID" --result "Cancelled - approval rejected: <note>"

---

Re-pinging

If an approval is still pending after 4 hours during day mode, send one re-ping:

cortextos bus send-telegram "$CTX_TELEGRAM_CHAT_ID" \
  "Reminder: approval for '<title>' is still pending. No rush, just flagging."

Send only ONE re-ping. Do not spam.

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Listing Pending Approvals

cortextos bus list-approvals --format json

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Critical Rules

1. Create approval BEFORE starting the action - never take the action first and ask forgiveness
2. Always block your task pointing to the approval ID - so work isn't lost while waiting
3. Never assume approval - if you don't have an inbox confirmation, you don't have approval
4. One re-ping max - after 4h, ping once and wait