Fully autonomous AI workflows sound appealing, but most organizations aren’t ready to let AI send emails, publish content, or process invoices without human review. That’s where approval steps come in.
When to use approval gates
Approval steps are most valuable when:
- The output goes to external stakeholders — customer emails, published content, contract responses
- Financial decisions are involved — invoice approvals, budget allocations, expense reviews
- Compliance matters — legal documents, regulatory submissions, HR communications
- Quality standards must be maintained — brand voice, technical accuracy, data integrity
How approval steps work
An approval step pauses workflow execution and notifies designated approvers via email. The workflow enters a “waiting” state until an approver takes action.
Approvers can:
- Approve to continue the workflow
- Reject to stop the workflow
- Provide input if the approval step includes an input schema (e.g., revision notes)
The workflow then resumes from exactly where it paused, with the approver’s response available to subsequent steps.
Example: Content pipeline with editorial review
Here’s a realistic content pipeline workflow:
- Draft Blog Post (Recipe Step) — AI generates a draft from a topic and outline
- Editorial Review (Approval Step) — Editor receives email, reviews draft, provides feedback
- Generate Social Posts (Recipe Step) — Creates platform-specific social content from the approved blog post
- Create Newsletter Section (Recipe Step) — Formats a newsletter snippet from the blog post
If the editor rejects the draft, the workflow stops and the content team can iterate. If approved, the workflow continues to generate all derivative content from the approved version.
Key design decisions
Where to place approval steps: Put them at the point where AI output transitions from internal draft to external-facing content. Don’t gate every step — that defeats the purpose of automation.
Who should approve: Approval steps send email notifications. Choose approvers who have authority to sign off on the output type. For content, that’s usually an editor or marketing lead. For invoices, it’s a finance manager.
Input schemas on approvals: You can attach an input schema to approval steps, letting approvers provide structured feedback (revision notes, priority changes, routing decisions) that downstream steps can use.
Approval steps can’t be nested
One important constraint: approval steps cannot be placed inside condition steps, loop steps, or parallel steps. This is by design — approval is a workflow-level gate, not a per-iteration decision. If you need approval inside a loop, restructure the workflow to batch items first, then approve the batch.
Getting started
The Marketing, Legal, and Finance starter packs all include workflows with approval steps pre-configured. Install a pack and run one of these workflows to see how approvals work in practice before building your own.