Human in the loop
The agent does the release. It does not decide the release.
An agent that can run your pipeline can also run it at the wrong moment. Telling it to ask first is a sentence in a prompt, and a sentence in a prompt is a probability. An approval gate is not: the engine stops the workflow at that step and hands the agent nothing further until the gate has an answer. The agent's only remaining move is to put the question to you, in the session you are already working in, and bring back what you said.
Gates are a workflow primitive, so they go wherever the risk is. The shipped release workflow puts one in front of the production deploy and another in front of rollback; the infrastructure workflow gates on an approved plan and its monthly cost before anything is applied; the Boy Scout coding workflow gates on scope and then on design before a line is written.
The facts
- ✓Approval gates are a node type in the workflow designer, available on every tier.
- ✓The gate's question reaches you through your coding agent's own session. There is no separate approval screen to run or watch.
- ✓The shipped release workflow gates production deploy and rollback separately, after a staging deploy with health and smoke checks.
- ✓The infrastructure workflow gates on a human-approved plan and a monthly cost figure before apply, with credentials referenced by name only.
- ✓Boy Scout Coding gates twice before any code is written: on the scoped request, then on the design.
The problem
Where it goes wrong without rails
"Ask before deploying" in a system prompt holds until the one run where the model reads the situation differently.
A pipeline the agent can trigger is a pipeline the agent can trigger twice, out of order, or against the wrong environment.
Reviewers want to approve a specific, fully-prepared action — not be asked a vague question mid-run.
How it works
What the engine does about it
- 1
Place a gate in the workflow
In the visual designer, an approval gate is a node. Put it in front of the deploy step, the apply step, the delete step — anything you would not want to discover had happened.
- 2
The agent prepares everything up to the gate
In the release workflow that means a semver bump, release notes from the change log, an immutable version-stamped artifact, a staging deploy with a deterministic health and smoke proof, and a bounded release review — all done before the gate is reached.
- 3
The workflow halts, and the question comes to you
Instead of a next step, the engine hands the agent the gate's question. The agent puts it to you in your own session — Claude Code, Codex, wherever you are — with exactly what is about to happen. Your answer goes back through the agent, and the engine records it before anything else runs.
- 4
Only then, the irreversible step
The production deploy runs with post-deploy verification. Rollback is a first-class path, and it sits behind its own gate.
Questions
Asked before buying
- What does the agent do while a gate is open?
- It asks you. The engine gives it no next step until the gate has an answer, so the agent's only move in that workflow is to put the question to you and return what you said.
- Who can approve?
- Whoever is at the keyboard of the agent's session. There is no separate approval interface: the gate's question comes to you through the agent you are already talking to, and your answer goes back the same way.
- Can a gate be skipped by telling the agent to skip it?
- The gate itself cannot be skipped: the engine issues no further step until it has an answer, and the agent is instructed to get that answer from you. What a prompt can change is how the agent phrases the question — not whether the engine waits for one.
Start with
The packages that fit
- Boy Scout Coding →
A code change by your coding agent: scoped, designed, approved at two human gates, reviewed from three angles, covered by tests — and the code left cleaner.
- Security Review →
A source-level OWASP Top 10 assessment and a STRIDE threat model with trust boundaries, built by your coding agent one verified step at a time. Free from Pro.
Every plan and what it includes is on the pricing page.