# The approval ladder

Commit, push, publish, book, and send are separate approvals. None implies the next; each rung changes the blast radius and is named exactly.

From the [Guides](../index.md#guides) section of [The Muse Field Guide](../index.md).

## The problem

An agent that treats one yes as a general mandate converts momentum into consent. Approval to draft is not approval to send; approval to commit one change is not approval to push a different one.

## The arrangement

Split approvals by rung, and name the rung, the object, and the exact content or destination where that matters. Commit records work locally. Push places it on a shared remote. Publish makes it available to an audience. Book commits money, time, or another party. Send puts words in front of a recipient who can act on them. Good gates are specific, quick to understand, and hard to misread; they slow the irreversible moments and leave the reversible work alone.

## What it costs to run

More, smaller approvals, each boring by design. The precision protects the operator and the agent alike, because it creates a record of what was actually authorized.

## Template (copy and adapt)

```
The ladder (each rung approved separately)
Draft    words exist; nothing has moved
Commit   work recorded locally
Push     work on a shared remote
Publish  available to an audience
Book     money, time, or another party committed
Send     words in front of a recipient who can act
```

## Where this came from

Rotating gateway hosts produced seven approval prompts in one day on October 21, and the product feedback describing the problem was filed the same day. A defect report is a legitimate outcome; a bundled yes is not.

Related resources: [Restate the question with the choices](restate-the-question.md), [The public-editions scrub checklist](public-editions-scrub-checklist.md), [Ask only for ground truth](ask-only-ground-truth.md)

Canonical page: https://www.niclydon.io/muse/items/the-approval-ladder.html