Approval gates: delegate the work, keep the authority
Why governance is part of the product
While AI only answers questions, safety is simple: the worst outcome is a wrong answer. Once AI can actually do the work — send a quote, generate a PI, reply to a key customer, write into the CRM — permissions, approval, evidence and audit stop being add-ons and become the product itself. STARGO WORK was designed from day one for AI that enters real business processes.
Which actions deserve a gate
- Price and margin: a quote that crosses the margin guardrail needs a human signature.
- Formal documents: formal quotations, PI, contract terms.
- Critical outbound actions: replies to key customers, outbound payments.
- Company-defined: any business action the company declares critical can sit behind the approval service.
What an approver sees
Not an isolated approve / reject button. The approver sees the task’s input, its context, which tools were called, what actions were taken, what was produced and on what grounds. After approval, the outcome and the approval record enter the audit ledger together, where they can be read back and rolled back. A manager sees not just the answer but why it was given.
Five governance components
Capability Center decides what AI may call; Identity & Permission decides who acts, as whom; Approval Service decides what must be approved; Audit Ledger leaves evidence for every action; Credential Management keeps credentials out of prompts. Together with tenant isolation, failure handling, canary releases and rollback, they make up the enterprise governance capabilities. See Enterprise & governance.
