Approval not found

1. The inputs changed

This is the common case, and it is the control working. Any change to the arguments produces a different fingerprint, and the approval you granted does not cover it.

Agents that regenerate their payload before retrying — re-running a model, re-serialising, adding a timestamp — will do this every time. Compare the fingerprint on the approval with the one on the new request; the activity record shows both.

2. The approval expired

Pending and approved requests expire automatically. If the retry came late, the approval is gone. See An approval expired before it was used.

3. The retry is a different identity

An approval belongs to the agent that made the request. A retry from a different agent, or from the same agent in a different environment, will not find it. Check the identity on both records.

4. It was already claimed

Approvals are single-use. If the agent already retried successfully once, a second identical call finds nothing. See Approval already claimed.

The fix

Review the new request in the Approval Center and decide on it. Do not look for a way to make one approval cover a class of requests — that is a permission change, and it belongs in the matrix where it is visible.

Related guides

• ApprovalAn approval expired before it was used

  Expiry is a control, not a failure. Why approvals lapse, what the retry guidance tells the agent, and how to stop it happening on every run.

• ApprovalApproval already claimed

  Approvals are claimed atomically and can authorize exactly one execution. Why a second identical call is refused, and why that refusal is the point.

• EvidenceWhat a request fingerprint proves

  A stable digest of the request that lets an approval bind to exact inputs. What it proves, what it does not, and how to use it when comparing two requests.