Requests and approval
Chats, crew members and automations leave requests in a member's inbox. They run together in one session once you approve them or auto-approve does.
Where in StudioStudio → a crew member → Inbox
Updated View as markdown
On this page
Every chat sees a short list of your crew: the listed members of its project and the members without a project. A chat can leave a member a request ("add the retry queue to the next deploy") or a notice ("CI is green again"). Nothing runs on a request until you approve it, unless you turned on auto-approve for that member.
Requests and notices
| Kind | What happens |
|---|---|
| Request | Waits in the inbox for your approval, then runs in a session of the member. Its sender can read the result. |
| Notice | Needs no approval and starts nothing. The member's next session reads it. |
Requests come from your chats, from sessions of other crew members and from automations. Each shows its sender: the chat's title, the member's name or the automation. A chat that sends the same request again replaces its earlier one while it is still pending.
Approve a batch
Requests gather
New requests gather for the member's Inbox wait, two minutes by default. Meanwhile the avatar shows a grey count, and the inbox lists them as queued with the time the batch opens.
The batch waits for you
When no new request has arrived for that long, the requests become one batch: the avatar's count turns blue, Studio shows a notification, and the member opens on the batch. Requests that arrive later join the open batch.
Approve or decline
Each request is a card with its sender, age and full text, and its own Approve and Decline. With several, tick the ones you want and click Approve N, or Decline all. A long request shows Read the whole request first; you can approve it only after reading it.
Approved requests reach the member in one message, marked as data, and it acts with its own access. If the member has a running session they go there; otherwise a new session starts, titled "Inbox · N requests". The session reports each request done or failed with a short result, which the sending chat can read. A declined request never runs, and its sender sees it as declined.
Note
Once a batch session has started, its approvals stand. If the session cannot start, the requests go back to waiting for you.
Auto-approve
On a member's Settings page, under Inbox wait, you can let the member approve eligible requests itself, so a chosen member works without you in the loop. It is off by default.
| Setting | Choices |
|---|---|
| Auto-approve | Off or on. |
| Auto-approve senders | No more access than the member (the default): only requests from a chat or member whose access does not exceed the member's. Any access: every sender; Studio warns before you save it. |
| Auto-approve limit | 1 to 20 requests in any rolling hour, 5 by default. |
When the inbox wait ends, the eligible requests run at once and the rest wait on the batch card as usual. Requests from automations, and requests over the hourly limit, always wait for you. The inbox and the sender both see which requests were auto-approved.
Warning
No sender has more access than a member with Full Access, so with auto-approve on such a member approves requests from every chat, and those requests run commands, edit files and reach the network without asking you. Turn auto-approve on only for members whose charter and access you are comfortable letting other chats drive.
Limits
| Limit | Value |
|---|---|
| Requests a chat sends | 10 per hour |
| Requests one member's sessions send | 20 per hour |
| Requests sent on one computer | 120 per hour |
| Requests between members | Up to two hops: a chat asks a member, which may ask another, which may ask a third. A member cannot ask itself. |
| Pending requests per member | 50 |
| A request's text | 4,000 characters; its result 1,200 |
| A pending request | Expires after 7 days |
A request that hits a limit is refused and nothing is sent. Moving a member to another host expires its open requests. Finished requests are removed after 14 days.