Some work should not happen without a person saying yes. Approval steps add that check. External action settings control anything that leaves raia Command.
What an external action is
An external action is anything a Loop does outside raia Command — for example, sending a message or creating a record in another system. Reading and summarizing text inside a Loop is not an external action.
External actions are where mistakes cost the most. A wrong summary can be rewritten. A sent email cannot be unsent.
Add an approval step
- Click Edit Steps.
- Click Add approval at the point where a person should decide — usually just before an external action.
- Fill in the settings:
| Setting | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Who decides | The email addresses of the people who can decide. |
| How many must respond | How many of them must decide before the Run moves on. |
| What to show them | The results they need to make the decision, such as the draft reply from the previous step. |
| Send back to | Optional. Pick an earlier step from the list, such as "Step 2 — Write the internal summary". If the decider asks for changes, the Run returns to that step. |
- Highlight 1: Add approval adds the step.
- Highlight 2: Kind: A person decides
- Highlight 3: Who decides
- Highlight 1: How many must respond
- Highlight 2: What to show them
- Highlight 3: Send back to (optional)
- Click Save steps.
What the decider can do
- Approve — the Run continues to the next step.
- Send back — the Run returns to the earlier step you configured and works again from there. This happens inside the same Run; it does not start a new one.
- Stop — the Run ends.
The clock keeps running
While a Run waits for a decision, its time budget continues to count down. If people take longer than the Run's time limit, the Run stops. Set the time limit on the Safety tab with your approvers' response time in mind.
Worked example: one approval email
Open the review link in the approval email and read the output from the previous step. Approve it only if it matches the intended result; reject it if a correction is needed.
After you decide, check two things: the link page says Decision recorded, and the Run actually finished. The link and the Run have separate time limits — here, the waiting time counted inside the Run's 5-minute limit.
Worked example
The examples use fictional data. Follow the same checks with approved, non-sensitive information for your own task.
Read the material shown on the approval page before selecting Approve. Decision recorded confirms that your decision was accepted and the Run can continue; return to the Run to check what happens next.
- Highlight 1: Decision recorded
Open the Run’s Journey after approval and check that the remaining steps finished. For the human-review step, read the decision rather than relying on its Agent label. External actions taken is not a count of every email or notification; check those deliveries separately.
- Highlight 1: This run finished — completed
- Highlight 2: Step 2: the human review
- Highlight 3: External actions taken: 0
If an approval link says A decision has already been recorded, return to the Run to review the existing decision. Do not treat reopening a used link as a new approval.
- Highlight 1: A decision has already been recorded
Mark steps that act outside raia Command
When an agent step's task does something outside raia Command, tick Takes an action outside raia Command. This counts the step toward the external action limit on the Safety tab and makes it visible in the Run's record.
Sending email has its own option. In the step, open What the agent does and choose Send an email. That step is always treated as external, so put an approval step in front of it.
A safe pattern
1. Loop AI — Draft the reply
2. Approval — Who decides: support lead. Show: the draft. Send back to: step 1.
3. Agent — Send the approved reply (Takes an action outside raia Command)The approval step can show the configured preceding-step output. Confirm that it displays the final message the action will send, and approve only after checking that content. If it is wrong, they send it back and step 1 drafts again.
Before you test
Run test really runs your Loop. If a step sends email or creates records, the test will do that too.
- Point tests at yourself or a test system, never at customers.
- Keep an approval step in front of every external action while you test.
- Read Outcomes and safety limits and set a low external action limit.
If you are not sure an action happened
Sometimes a Run stops part way and you cannot tell whether an action went through. raia Command does not promise every action happens exactly once, and some agent tool calls may not be counted perfectly.
Before you retry:
- Open the Run and check its external actions.
- Look in the other system — the mailbox, the CRM, the ticket — for proof the action happened.
- Retry only if you are sure it did not.
Checkpoint
Every step that changes something outside raia Command is ticked as external and has an approval step in front of it.