Writing approval rules
Planned. How approval rules would decide who approves agent proposals and records, by type, amount, job and role, with sequential and parallel steps.
This is on the roadmap and not built yet.
Approval rules decide who has to approve what. They apply the same way whether a record was created by a person or proposed by an agent. This page explains how we plan for rules to work. For the approval queue and audit trail, see Approvals and audit trail.
Anatomy of a rule
Every rule has four parts:
| Part | Question it answers | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Applies to | Which records or proposals? | Commitment change orders, invoice holds, pay app drafts, RFIs sent externally |
| Conditions | When does it apply? | Amount over a threshold, a specific job or cost code, an outside vendor |
| Approvers | Who decides? | A role on the job (PM, project executive), a named person, a group |
| Steps | In what order? | One approver, several in sequence, or several in parallel |
Rules are evaluated top to bottom. The first rule whose conditions match is used, so put narrow rules above broad ones.
Examples
Commitment change orders, by amount
- Up to your PM limit: the job’s PM approves.
- Above the PM limit: PM, then project executive, in sequence.
- Above the executive limit: add the CFO as a third step.
The limits are your company’s numbers, not ours. A commitment change drafted by the AP agent from CO #14 follows exactly the same rule as one a PM creates by hand.
Invoice holds and releases
- Hold proposed for over-commitment (like INV-4471, $6,150 over PO-118): the job’s PM approves the hold.
- Release of a hold over a threshold: PM and project accountant, in parallel. Both must approve.
- Hold for missing compliance documents (lien waiver, insurance): project accountant approves. Release requires the document on file.
Pay application drafts
- Billing agent draft of Pay App #9: PM reviews progress by SOV line.
- Then project accountant reviews retainage, change orders and totals.
- Then the draft can be sent to the owner.
Sequential, because the accountant’s review depends on the PM’s progress numbers.
What rules can’t do
Some limits are built in and can’t be changed by a rule:
- Agents never approve. Not their own proposals, not another agent’s. Every approver is a person.
- No extra authority. A rule can only route to people whose role allows the action. If a PM can’t approve commitment changes over a limit, a rule can’t make them the approver for larger ones.
- No self-approval of your own edits where your company requires separation, for example the person who entered an invoice also releasing its hold. This is a setting.
- Posting stays controlled. Rules decide who approves; they don’t let an agent post to the ledger without that approval.
Writing a rule
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Start from your current policy
Write down how approvals work today, even if it’s informal: who signs sub change orders, who releases holds, who reviews pay apps. Rules should match reality first, then improve it.
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Create the rule
Choose what it applies to, the conditions, the approvers and the steps.
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Test it against past records
Run the rule against recent records to see who would have been asked to approve each one. Planned.
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Turn it on
New records and proposals follow the rule from that point. Records already in a queue keep the approvers they had.
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Review it
Rule changes are recorded in the audit log with who changed what and when. See Audit log and history.
Delegation and absence
Approvals stall when someone is on vacation. The design includes:
- Delegation: an approver hands their queue to someone with equal or higher authority for a period.
- Escalation: items waiting longer than a set time notify the next approver or a group.
Delegated approvals are recorded under the person who actually approved, with the delegation noted.
Keep exploring
Related across os.construction
- DocsHow agents workPlanned. What AI agents in os.construction would do, what they could read, how they would propose work, and why a human would approve every action.
- DocsPlanned agentsAP, Billing, Risk, RFI, Compliance and Reporting. The six agents we plan to build first, what each would do and read, and what it would ask you to approve.
- BlogAgents with approvals: our approach to AI in the back officeAI in construction accounting goes wrong in two ways: chatbots that know nothing about your jobs, and autopilots that post entries nobody checked. Our model is an apprentice with a supervisor. Here are the rules.
- GlossaryAI AgentSoftware that uses an AI model to carry out multi-step tasks, like reading documents, checking data and drafting actions, toward a goal.
- Blogos.construction is open for trialsThe app is live at app.os.construction. Start a 14-day free trial: project management and project financials today, with separate company accounting workflows and planned AI agents. Here's exactly what's live and what isn't.
- GlossaryAudit TrailA permanent, time-stamped record of who created, changed or approved each piece of data, and what it was before.
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