Approving

Agent workflows that advance with humans — a new paradigm for multi-agent collaboration.

Approving turns coding agents into workflows you can trust: visual orchestration, sandboxed execution, and human Approve at critical nodes before continuing. Open-source and self-hostable, with rollback and human gates. See the Site — This project was built with this workflow.

Security scans (CodeQL, web npm audit, gitleaks) run via the security workflow on push/PR. View CodeQL under Security → Code scanning (or PR Checks); npm audit and gitleaks results are in the corresponding Actions job logs.

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What is Approving?

Approving helps agent workflows move forward with humans: visually orchestrate multi-agent collaboration, run in sandboxes, and pause for human Approve at critical nodes. Backends include Cursor, Claude Code, CodeBuddy, and Trae.

Why Approving?

Named for Approve: in human–agent collaboration, critical nodes must be approved by a person before the workflow continues — trust is built into the path.

Features

Approving manages the full agent workflow: from graph design to sandboxed execution to artifact handoff.

• Visual orchestration — canvas FSM with when guards, checkpoints, and gates; rollback on failure
• Real Docker sandboxes — agent and react nodes run in containers via ACP through the vendored sandbox-gateway. The web UI is API-driven.
• Multi-agent backends — one platform for Cursor, Claude Code, CodeBuddy, and Trae. Pick acpBackend per agent; keys live on Agent meta env.
• Artifact contract + run-scoped MCP — agents call write_artifact / set_* / node_complete. Each run is isolated by token.
• Git credentials in the sandbox — configure GITHUB_*, GITLAB_*, or SSH on Agent meta env (values may reference ${vars.<name>}). GitLab auto-MR via glab remains available; GitHub PRs use Agent-side gh.
• Single-repo self-host — sandbox-gateway and sandbox image sources live in this repository. One clone is enough.

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Quick Start

Linux host with Docker Compose. The default path pulls published GHCR images (no local image build):

./start.sh -d

Then open:

• UI / API: http://localhost:8080
• API health: http://localhost:8080/api/health
• Gateway health: http://localhost:8899/healthz
• Default login: admin / demo1234 (local-demo)

./start.sh also pulls the sandbox runtime image from GHCR (several GB). Until that finishes, sandbox chat stays on “starting sandbox…”.

Useful commands:

./start.sh logs
./start.sh down
./start.sh pull          # refresh GHCR images
./start.sh dev -d        # source stack: go run + Vite HMR

Image tags and digests are overridable in .env — see .env.example. For release pinning and smoke tests, see Contributing.

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Getting Started

1. Start the stack

./start.sh -d

Open http://localhost:8080 and sign in with admin / demo1234. Fresh installs start with an empty project — there is no sample pipeline.

2. Configure an agent

In Agent Studio, create or edit an agent. Set acpBackend (cursor, claude_code, codebuddy, or trae) and put the matching API key on Agent env. Details: server/README.md.

3. Create a workflow

Use New workflow to create a pipeline, then build an FSM graph: agent / react nodes, success and failure edges, optional rollback paths, and human gates where someone must approve before the run continues.

4. Run and observe

Publish the pipeline if needed, then start a run. Watch sandbox execution, artifacts written via MCP, and any gate that waits for approval. Failed steps can follow failure or rollback edges instead of dying silently.

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Architecture

┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────────────┐     ┌──────────────────┐
│  Vue3 +      │────>│  Go Backend      │────>│ sandbox-gateway  │
│  Vue Flow    │<────│  (FSM + MCP)     │<────│  (Docker)        │
└──────────────┘     └────────┬─────────┘     └────────┬─────────┘
                              │                        │
                              │                        ▼
                              │               ┌──────────────────┐
                              └──────────────>│ universal sandbox│
                                artifacts     │ (ACP backends)   │
                                              └──────────────────┘

Layer	Stack
Frontend	Vue 3 + Vue Flow
Backend	Go (approving-server, env prefix APPROVING_)
Execution	Vendored sandbox-gateway + universal sandbox images
Agent backends	Cursor, Claude Code, CodeBuddy, Trae (ACP)

Development

For contributors working on the Approving codebase, see the Contributing Guide. Critical-path Playwright e2e (CI web-e2e): see CONTRIBUTING — Critical-path Playwright e2e.

Prerequisites: Go, Node.js, Docker Compose (Linux host for sandboxes)

./start.sh dev -d

Source layout: server/ (Go FSM + sandbox client + artifact MCP), web/ (Vue UI), sandbox-gateway/ (gateway + sandbox image sources).

Configuration: server/CONFIGURATION.md and server/config.example.yaml. Precedence: explicit env > mounted file > defaults. Git credentials for sandboxes stay on Agent meta env, not platform config.

License

MIT © 2026 cocofhu