Resolve approvals and decisions

Use this when a background work item waits on you: it asks for your approval, asks you to choose, or cannot continue because Barry cannot prove what happened. Each case shows up in the Background work view, and each ends with a decision that Barry records once.

Before you begin

You have background work running, as in Run work in the background.
You are among the people the decision names as allowed to answer it.

Find what needs you

Open Background work and look under Needs attention. It holds every item that cannot continue until someone decides something. An item reads Waiting for your approval only when the work declared a typed decision for you. Barry never treats an arbitrary signal as an approval.

Answer an approval or a choice

Open the item. A typed decision carries:

the prompt: what the work asks;
the choices you can make;
any input your answer needs;
who may answer;
when it expires.

Pick a choice and fill in any input. Barry checks that you may answer, then records your answer with a receipt. It records an answer once, so a second click changes nothing. Answer before the expiry the item shows.

Resolve work Barry cannot prove

An item also lands in Needs attention when Barry cannot tell what happened. A machine might have gone silent mid-step, or Barry might lack confirmation that a stopped step ended. A stop that Barry never saw finish lands here, not in Failed.

Rather than guess, the item shows what may already have happened and how to check with the destination: for example, the message, commit, or record the step would have created. Barry never repeats an effect it cannot prove is safe to repeat. Check the destination, then use the control the item offers:

Continue lets the work proceed, once Barry confirms that proceeding is safe.
Accepting a recovered result, when Barry found evidence that the step finished, moves the item to Completed.

When nothing proves what happened, your resolution records who resolved it, the evidence, the reason, and the risk that remains. Barry never invents a receipt to fill the gap.

Verify

After you answer, the item leaves Needs attention. It moves to Active when the work continues, or to History when your answer ends it. The item’s history shows your decision and the evidence behind it.

If it fails

Barry refuses your answer. The decision names who may answer it. Ask one of them to answer.
Continue is not on offer. Barry has not confirmed that proceeding is safe. Check the destination the item names; Barry offers only the controls that fit the item’s state, and says why the others do not apply.
The decision expired. An expired decision takes no answer. Use Run again to start the work fresh if you still want it.
Nothing here explains the state. Collect the evidence that When none of that resolves it lists.