Tool approvals

Overview

Tool approvals let you mark specific tools as “requires approval”. When the agent tries to run one, execution pauses and your client must approve or deny before the run can continue.

Configure tools to require approval

TypeScript SDK (MCP tools)

import { agent, tool } from "@inkeep/agents-sdk";

const weatherAgent = agent("weather-forecast")
  .prompt("You help users get weather information.")
  .canUse(
    tool("weather-mcp").with({
      selectedTools: [
        "get_current_weather", // No approval required
        {
          name: "get_weather_forecast",
          needsApproval: true, // Requires user approval
        },
      ],
    })
  );

In the Visual Builder, select an MCP server node connected to a Sub Agent and toggle approval for individual tools in the Tool Configuration section. You can also bulk toggle approvals for all enabled tools using the header checkbox.

Runtime Behavior

When a tool requires approval, you’ll see a tool-approval-request in the stream.

See Chat API for the tool event payloads (including approval requests, tool inputs, and tool outputs).

Responding to an approval request

You can approve/deny in two ways.

Option A: Dedicated endpoint

POST /run/api/tool-approvals (or POST /api/tool-approvals if your Run API is not mounted under /run).

{
  "conversationId": "conv_xyz789",
  "toolCallId": "call_abc123def456",
  "approved": true,
  "reason": "User confirmed the operation" // Optional
}

Option B: Respond via the chat endpoint (message part)

This is useful if your UI already models tool parts (for example, using the Vercel AI SDK UI message stream).

POST /run/api/chat with an assistant message that includes a tool-* part:

{
  "conversationId": "conv_xyz789",
  "messages": [
    {
      "role": "assistant",
      "content": null,
      "parts": [
        {
          "type": "tool-get_weather_forecast",
          "toolCallId": "call_abc123def456",
          "state": "approval-responded",
          "approval": {
            "id": "aitxt-call_abc123def456",
            "approved": true,
            "reason": "User confirmed"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Vercel AI SDK (`useChat`) example

If you’re using the Vercel AI SDK UI message stream, approval requests show up as tool-* parts (e.g. tool-getWeather) with state: "approval-requested".

After calling addToolApprovalResponse(...), call sendMessage() so the updated messages (including the approval response) are POSTed back to /run/api/chat and the run can continue.

'use client';

import { useChat } from '@ai-sdk/react';

export default function Chat() {
  const { messages, addToolApprovalResponse, sendMessage } = useChat();

  return (
    <>
      {messages.map((message) => (
        <div key={message.id}>
          {message.parts.map((part) => {
            if (part.type === 'tool-getWeather') {
              switch (part.state) {
                case 'approval-requested':
                  return (
                    <div key={part.toolCallId}>
                      <p>Get weather for {part.input.city}?</p>
                      <button
                        type="button"
                        onClick={() => {
                          addToolApprovalResponse({
                            id: part.approval.id,
                            approved: true,
                          });
                          sendMessage();
                        }}
                      >
                        Approve
                      </button>
                      <button
                        type="button"
                        onClick={() => {
                          addToolApprovalResponse({
                            id: part.approval.id,
                            approved: false,
                          });
                          sendMessage();
                        }}
                      >
                        Deny
                      </button>
                    </div>
                  );
                case 'output-available':
                  return (
                    <div key={part.toolCallId}>
                      Weather in {part.input.city}: {String(part.output)}
                    </div>
                  );
              }
            }

            return null;
          })}
        </div>
      ))}
    </>
  );
}

Note

Only state: "approval-responded" triggers an approval/denial. If your client includes other tool approval parts in message history (for example state: "approval-requested"), the server ignores them.

Tool approvals in Slack

When you run agents in Slack (via the Inkeep Slack app), tool approvals appear as interactive messages with Approve and Deny buttons.

How it works

The agent requests to run a tool that requires approval
Slack posts a message showing the tool name and its input parameters
The user clicks Approve or Deny
The agent continues based on the user's decision

Permissions

Only the user who started the conversation can approve or deny a tool request. If another user clicks the buttons, they see an error message.

Approval timeout

If no one responds to an approval request within the timeout period, the request expires and the message updates to show "Expired". The agent receives a timeout notification and can inform the user.

Note

Tool approvals in Slack require account linking. Run /inkeep link to connect your Slack and Inkeep accounts before using agents with approval-required tools.

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