Documentation · Agents and work

Approve, drop and undo ideas

How to approve or drop your agents' ideas, bring back a dropped one, take back an approval, pick your report's first priorities, and what the work costs.

Your agents find things worth doing on your site: fixes, page changes, new pages and data updates. Each one is an idea. Nothing gets built until it's approved. You approve it, or you let agents start their own ideas. Only the account owner can approve, drop or undo work.

Where ideas wait for you

Most of this happens on Approvals. You can also act on ideas from a few other places:

See Approvals, Home, Report, Site map and Results for a tour of each page.

Approve or drop an idea

1. Open Approvals from the sidebar, or click an Approve item under Needs you on Home.
2. Find the idea under Waiting for your OK. Read its why and the Because line, which shows the evidence behind it.
3. Click Approve to start the work, or Drop to have your agents leave it.

A notice at the top of the page confirms it:

What arrives on Results depends on your settings. With GitHub connected and finished work set to Pull requests or Pull requests, merged for you, agents open a pull request. With Prompts only, or without GitHub, they write a prompt you paste into the tool you build your site with. See Ship changes.

If you see That didn’t save. Reload and try again., the idea changed since your page loaded. Reload the page and try again.

Ideas drop on their own after 14 days

An idea that waits 14 days with no changes and no new evidence is dropped for you. It moves to Dropped, where you can still approve it or send it back. Your report's actions don't expire.

Up to 15 ideas wait at once

A site can have up to 15 ideas waiting for your OK. Your report's actions don't count toward this. Agents also add at most 3 new ideas for page changes, new pages and other improvements per site per day.

Change your mind about a dropped idea

1. On Approvals, scroll to Dropped. It lists up to 20 dropped ideas, newest first. The section only shows when something is in it.
2. Click Approve to approve the idea now, or Send back to put it back in the queue.

If 15 ideas are already waiting, Send back doesn't work and you see That didn’t save. Reload and try again. Approve or drop a waiting idea first, then send it back again. Approve works either way.

On Enterprise, an agent's idea you send back goes to your SEO expert first. The notice reads Sent back. Your SEO expert checks it first, then it waits here for your OK.

Take back an approval

You can undo an approval until an agent starts on it.

1. Open Results and find the item under Being worked on. It shows the Approved pill.
2. Click Move back to return it to Waiting for your OK, or Drop to have agents leave it.

An idea you move back stays waiting for you, even when new ideas are set to Start without asking. Agents won't start it again until you approve it.

On Enterprise, an agent's idea you move back goes to your SEO expert first. The notice reads Moved back. Your SEO expert checks it first, then it waits here for your OK.

Once an agent has started

An agent has started once the item has a pull request or a prompt, or a job for it is queued or running. From then on Move back and Drop are gone. A card with no pull request or prompt yet reads Your agents are working on it. If you click an old button on a page you haven't reloaded, you see: Your agents have already started on it, so it stays approved.

To stop work that's already started:

• A pull request: close it on GitHub without merging. The item goes back to the status it had before the agent started, and agents don't start it again on their own.
• A prompt: don't paste it. Nothing changes on your site until you make the change.

Let agents start ideas without asking

By default each idea waits for you. You can let agents start their own ideas instead.

1. On Approvals, click Change next to New ideas:. This opens Settings, Connections.
2. Under New ideas ("When an agent has an idea for your site."), choose one:

3. Click Save new ideas. The notice reads Saved. New ideas: ask me first. or Saved. New ideas: start without asking.

This setting doesn't need GitHub. Without a repo, a started idea arrives as a prompt on Results.

With Start without asking, the notice on Approvals reads New ideas: Start without asking. Agents start their own ideas, so few wait here. A few things still wait for you:

• Your report's actions. They always wait for your OK.
• Ideas you moved back. They stay waiting until you approve them.
• On Enterprise, your SEO expert checks agents' ideas before anything happens to them. Until then, Approvals only shows how many they're checking. See Enterprise.

You can still drop any idea, and take back any approval before an agent starts on it.

Pick your first priorities from your report

Your first report lists actions in priority order. Some are marked Priority. Once the report is ready, you pick which of those to start.

1. Open Report from the sidebar. Its pill reads Ready.
2. In the Actions table, tick the actions marked Priority. The line above the table reads Pick the priorities marked below to approve, or, when there are more priorities than you can pick, Pick up to 5 (or your depth's limit).
3. Click Approve priorities. The button stays greyed out until you tick at least one.

The notice reads Your selected work is approved and in your backlog. The report's pill changes to Work approved. Your site settings still control what gets published.

How many you can pick depends on your report's depth:

Until you pick, Approvals shows Your report’s actions are waiting for your OK. with a link to Pick the ones to start on your report, and Home lists it under Needs you.

Switch report actions on and off later

After your first pick, every action in the report has a switch.

• Switch one On and your agents work on it. The notice reads Switched on. Your agents will work on it. Switching an action you switched off back on approves it again.
• Switch one Off and they leave it alone. The notice reads Switched off. Your agents will leave it alone.
• Actions being built show In progress. Shipped or measured actions show Done. These have no switch.

The cap on your first pick doesn't apply to switches. You can switch on as many actions as you like.

Report actions you haven't switched on or off yet also show on Approvals under From your report, with Approve and Drop. It's the same switch as on your report. Actions you switched off only come back from the report. See Your first report and Report.

What approved work costs

Approving an idea costs nothing by itself. The work it starts is done by your agents, and agent work is paid in credits. One credit is one dollar.

• It comes out of your balance, at your budget's pace. Approved work spends credits from your balance, at the pace your budget in Settings sets. There is no separate charge per approval.
• Approved work goes first. When your budget is tight, work you approved, and fixes, get the first share of it, ahead of your agents' regular checks and reviews.
• Agents off means nothing is built. An approved item waits on Results. With pull requests, its card reads Agents are off. Pick a plan in Settings and the builder starts on it. See Turn agents on.
• Not enough credits means a pause. If your balance can't cover the next job, Home shows Agents paused. Add credits or turn on auto top-up, and work starts again on its own. See Credits.
• A small budget means waiting, not cheaper work. If your budget's pace is used up for now, the work waits until there's room. Agents never do worse work to fit the budget. See Budgets.
• Enterprise sites don't spend your credits. Ivy Link pays for the work, and your budget still sets the pace.

Start without asking doesn't raise your spending. Agents still only spend within your budget.

Related

• Approvals
• Results
• Ship changes
• Report
• Budgets
• Credits

Last updated October 31, 2026

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