An approval gate pauses a run until a person says yes. Used well, it’s how you let agents near money and access. Used badly, it’s a new queue nobody owns.

Gate decisions, not agents

Put gates on specific actions with clear thresholds: refunds over $150, production access, emails to more than 50 recipients. Everything below the threshold runs on its own.

Bring the context to the approver

An approval request should contain the agent’s recommendation, the evidence and the policy it applied — in Slack or Teams, where approvers already are. If people have to open another tool, approvals stall.

• Set an owner and a timeout for every gate

• Default to the safe outcome when a gate times out

• Review gates monthly: raise thresholds where approvals are always yes