Approval Gates
Add human-in-the-loop checkpoints to your workflows. Execution pauses at an Approval Gate until a team member reviews the data and approves or rejects it.
What Are Approval Gates?
An Approval Gate is a special node that pauses workflow execution and creates a review request. The workflow does not continue until a person with the appropriate permissions approves or rejects the request.
Use approval gates when automated decisions need human oversight — sending large payments, publishing content, modifying production data, or escalating support tickets.
Adding an Approval Gate
Drag the Approval Gate node
Connect it in the flow
Configure the gate
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Title | A short title that appears in the approvals list (e.g., 'Approve payment of $5,000'). |
| Description | Detailed context to help the reviewer make a decision. |
| Data preview | Select which workflow data fields to show the reviewer. Use the data picker to choose specific fields. |
| Expiration | How long to wait before auto-rejecting. Options: 1 hour, 4 hours, 24 hours, 7 days, or no expiration. |
Reviewing Approval Requests
When an execution reaches an Approval Gate, a new entry appears on the Approvals page.
The Approvals Page
Navigate to Approvals in the left sidebar. The page shows all pending approval requests for your organization, sorted by creation time (newest first).
Each request card shows:
- Title — the title configured on the Approval Gate node.
- Description — the context provided for the reviewer.
- Data preview — a formatted view of the workflow data selected for review.
- Workflow name — which workflow generated the request.
- Requested by — the execution context (schedule, webhook, or manual trigger).
- Created at — when the execution reached the gate.
- Expires at — when the request will auto-reject (if expiration is set).
Approving or Rejecting
Click a request to open its detail view, then choose an action:
- Approve
- The workflow resumes from the Approval Gate and continues to the next node. Any data passed through the gate is available to downstream nodes.
- Reject
- The workflow execution is marked as cancelled. No downstream nodes execute. The rejection reason (if provided) is recorded.
You can optionally add a response note — a text comment explaining your decision. This is recorded in the execution history for audit purposes.
Automatic Expiration
If an approval request is not acted on within the configured expiration period, it is automatically rejected. The workflow execution transitions to the Cancelled state.
Expired approvals are cleaned up by the scheduler service, which checks for stale requests periodically. The expiration is evaluated based on the creation time and the configured duration.
No expiration
Common Patterns
Payment Approval
Place an Approval Gate before a Stripe payment node. The gate shows the payment amount, recipient, and invoice details. The finance team reviews and approves before the charge is processed.
Content Review
Use an AI Prompt node to generate content, then route it through an Approval Gate before publishing. The reviewer sees the AI-generated text and can approve, reject, or flag it for edits.
Escalation Gate
Add a Condition node before the Approval Gate. Low-priority items flow straight through; high-priority items pause for approval. This reduces reviewer fatigue while maintaining oversight on important decisions.
Who Can Approve?
Any organization member with Member, Admin, or Owner role can view and act on approval requests. Viewer role users can see the approvals page but cannot approve or reject.
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