AI agents need tiered approval escalation, not one big confirm button

Short summary

Single-button approval for AI agents doesn't scale in production—users either rubber-stamp hundreds of actions or block workflow. Tiered escalation classifies each action by risk (read-only, reversible, bounded external write, irreversible) and routes approval accordingly, with receipts and guards preventing prompt injection. This framework eliminates approval fatigue while maintaining audit trails and safety.

• •Single confirm buttons cause approval fatigue and audit trail gaps in long-running agents
• •Tiered escalation (Tier 0–3) matches approval friction to action risk and blast radius
• •Implementation requires tier classification at the tool-call boundary, scoped receipts, and guards

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.