Approval

Pause for a human to approve or reject before continuing.

While it waits, the run shows under Needs you on the run page and on Today, and spool approve answers it from a terminal. Approving continues with the form’s values as this node’s output; rejecting cancels the run, with the reason recorded.

• Kind: approval
• Palette: Flow
• Run it on its own: no, only as part of a graph

When to use

• A person has to say yes before something irreversible: a deploy, a payment, a message to customers.
• A person has to supply something the run can’t know, such as which environment, or a note.

Field types are text, textarea, select (with options), checkbox and number.

Configuration

Field	Type	Required	Description
fields	array	no	Optional fields the approver fills in.
outputs	object	no	Rename what comes out: {output_name: key_in_the_raw_output}. Absent passes the raw output through.
prompt	string	no	Message shown to the approver.
timeout	string	no	How long to wait before giving up, e.g. “1h”; the output then says timed_out.

Output

The approver’s submission: one key per declared field, plus:

Field	Type	Description
timed_out	boolean	True when the deadline won rather than the thing being waited for.

Example

version: hyperspool-graph/v1
nodes:
  - id: build
    type: shell
    config: { run: spool output set tag=v1.4.0 }
  - id: gate
    type: approval
    config:
      prompt: { $template: "Deploy {{ nodes.build.output.tag }}?" }
      fields:
        - { name: env, type: select, options: [staging, production] }
        - { name: note, type: textarea }
      timeout: 24h
  - id: deploy
    type: shell
    if: "!nodes.gate.output.timed_out"
    config:
      run: { $template: "./deploy.sh {{ nodes.gate.output.env }}" }
edges:
  - { from: build, to: gate }
  - { from: gate, to: deploy }

A gate with a timeout that nobody answers succeeds with timed_out: true rather than failing, so guard what follows it: without the if:, deploy would run on silence. See Approvals.

See the node reference for every other node.