Human approval for consequential actions

Decide what is consequential

Sending, publishing, purchasing, booking, deleting, merging, deploying, changing access, and submitting official material all cross the approval line. Domain-specific decisions may cross it earlier.

Make approval specific

Before the action, show the account, target, final payload, attachments, timing, price, permissions, and rollback path where relevant. Ask for confirmation on that exact package.

Expire stale approval

1. Any material payload change requires a new confirmation.
2. An approved example is not standing permission.
3. A successful action is recorded; it is not retried as if it failed.
4. Partial success is reported target by target.

Evidence note: “looks good” is meaningful only when the user can see the final target and content.