> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.cogniagent.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Approvals
> Anything your AI coworker does that leaves your workspace waits for your yes. Here's what pauses, what it looks like, and how to stop being asked.
Your coworker does most of its work without interrupting you. When something would leave your workspace or change your systems, it stops and asks.
## What needs your yes
The default is straightforward, and worth knowing exactly:
> Sends, changes, and deletions pause for your approval.
So reading, searching, analysing and drafting all happen freely. Sending the email, updating the record, deleting the row — those wait.
A few things always ask, whatever else you've set:
* Starting a conversation with a person — see [Talking to people](/cowork/capabilities/talking-to-people)
* Handing work to another coworker, until you grant standing permission
* Creating or changing one of your automations
## What an approval looks like
A card in the conversation showing what your coworker wants to do, before it does it. Not "may I send an email" — the actual recipient and the actual message.
You approve, or you don't. Declining isn't a failure: your coworker carries on with the rest of the job and tells you what it skipped.
While it waits, the task is paused. Nothing happens until you answer, however long that takes.
## A different kind of pause: being asked a question
Sometimes your coworker doesn't want permission, it wants information. Which of two files is the current one. Whether an unusual figure is real. Which of three approaches you'd prefer.
That's a question card rather than an approval, and it's a good sign — a coworker that asks is one that isn't guessing on your behalf.
If a coworker asks the same question every time, the answer belongs in its [instructions](/cowork/coworkers/instructions) or a [skill](/cowork/skills/creating).
## Being asked less
Approving the same thing every day is a waste of your attention, and the fix isn't to switch safety off.
Say once that a specific action is always fine, or always forbidden. The precise tool.
For delegation, grant it once and your coworker stops asking each time.
Turn off the actions you never want. Nothing to approve if it can't be done.
The blunt instrument, for capabilities a coworker genuinely doesn't need.
## The three ways a person gets involved
Easy to confuse, so plainly:
| | Who's asked | Where |
| --------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------- | -------------------- |
| **Approvals** | You | In the task |
| **A question for you** | You | In the task |
| **[Talking to people](/cowork/capabilities/talking-to-people)** | Anyone — a customer, a colleague | Their email or Slack |
## Common questions
The task waits. It doesn't time out and act anyway, and it doesn't fail — it sits there until you get to it.
Not a specific action before it exists, but a [permission rule](/cowork/control/permission-rules) does exactly this for a whole class of action.
Tell your coworker immediately — it can often undo or follow up. This is the argument for reading the card rather than clicking through it.
No. Your coworker carries on with everything else and tells you what it couldn't do.
Only where you've allowed it — either with a permission rule, or by granting standing permission. The default is to ask.
## Next steps
Decide once instead of every time.
Rules that run without asking at all.
Control at the action level.
What always asks first.