Lesson 5 of 6 · 5 min read
Approvals and questions
Know which actions always wait for you, how to answer them from anywhere, and what Claude is never allowed to do.
What you’ll learn
- Which actions always stop and wait for your approval.
- Where approvals and Claude's questions appear, and how to answer them.
- What happens if nobody answers.
- What Claude can never do, whatever anyone asks.
What waits for you
Claude works on its own, but some actions always stop. You get a notification, and the feature shows Waiting for you:
- Pushing code (
git push) to GitLab. - Creating a merge request.
- Writing through a connector — creating, updating or deleting something in Jira, Confluence or another connected tool.
- Saving a setup change Claude proposes.
Where to answer
An approval appears in two places: on the Build page under Waiting for your approval, and in the Claude panel as a card marked Needs your approval. Each one says what Claude wants to do and shows the details — the command, or the list of changes.
- Read the details. For a push, check the repository and the branch in the command.
- Click Allow to let Claude go ahead, or Deny to refuse. For a setup change the buttons are Save and check and Discard.
- Claude continues. After a refusal it carries on without that action, or asks you what to do instead.
Example: during Tier 2 of team-invites, your phone shows a notification. You open it, see that Claude wants to push the branch for APP-101 to the accounts API repository, check the branch name and click Allow.
Tip: you can approve from any device. The notification takes you straight to the right page.
If nobody answers in time — 30 minutes — the action is skipped and the run goes on without it. You can always start the step again.
Claude's questions
When Claude isn't sure — which repository a ticket belongs to, which of two branches to use — it asks instead of guessing. The question shows in the Claude panel under Claude asks, with two to four answers as buttons, and on the feature's page. Click an answer, or type your own reply in the panel.
What Claude can never do
These are refused by the app itself, whatever Claude or anyone asks:
- force-push, or delete a branch by pushing;
- publish packages (npm publish and similar);
- merge or approve merge requests;
- make empty commits.
Merging is always done by a person — in the app with their own GitLab account, or in GitLab.
Tip: an admin who opens your feature sees your pending approvals but can't answer them. Only the feature's owner can.
Check yourself
1. Name two actions that always wait for your approval.
Any two of: pushing code, creating a merge request, writing through a connector, saving a setup change.
2. You were in a meeting and didn't answer a push request for an hour. What happened?
After the timeout (30 minutes by default) the push was skipped and the run went on without it. You can start the step again.
3. Can you ask Claude to merge its own merge request once tests pass?
No. Merging and approving are refused by the app; a person merges.