Three kinds, because the next move differs
They are separated deliberately. Answering a held call, choosing a branch, and investigating a
stopped run are different jobs, and a single undifferentiated list would make you re-read each row to
work out which one you were being asked to do.
When you decide, you can attach a note — why this branch, or the values the option you chose needs.
The note travels with the decision into the run’s evidence, so the reasoning is recoverable later
rather than living in someone’s memory.
Held calls come from guardrails
An Awaiting approval item is a guardrail doing its job. A rule with the Hold for approval action pauses the matching call and puts it here rather than refusing it outright — the human-in-the-loop posture for work that mutates something. Approving it from this screen releases the call through the same path the guardrail held it on.It tells you when it cannot see everything
The inbox reads from several sources, and the screen is explicit when one of them does not answer rather than quietly showing a shorter list:- “One source did not answer” — the list is incomplete, and it names which section is affected.
- “Can’t confirm the inbox is empty” — nothing is showing, but the screen will not claim you are clear when it could not read everything.
- When there is more than the screen holds, only the oldest items are shown — work through them and reload for the rest.
That last distinction is worth trusting. An empty inbox and an inbox that could not be read look the
same on most screens; here they do not, so “nothing needs you” means it.
Next steps
Approvals
How an approval is requested, and what the decider is shown.
Standards & Guardrails
The rules that hold an action in the first place.
Runs & evidence
The run behind a stopped item, and the trail your decision joins.
Orchestration
Where a workflow pauses for a selection.