Plugin Permission Requests: User Approval for Tool Calls

Plugin permission requests let plugin code pause a tool call or a plugin-owned operation until a user approves or denies it. They rely on the Gateway plugin.approval.* flow and the same approval UI surfaces used for chat approval buttons and /approve commands.

Use plugin permission requests for plugin and app permissions. They do not replace host exec approvals, optional tool allowlists, or Codex's native permission review.

Choose the right gate

Choose the gate that matches the decision point you need:

Optional tools are a discovery-time gate. Plugin permission requests are a per-call gate. Use both when a sensitive tool should require explicit opt-in before the model can see it and approval before the action runs.

Request approval before a tool call

Most plugin-authored prompts should start in a before_tool_call hook. The hook runs after the model selects a tool and before OpenClaw executes it:

import { definePluginEntry } from "openclaw/plugin-sdk/plugin-entry";

export default definePluginEntry({
  id: "deploy-policy",
  name: "Deploy Policy",
  register(api) {
    api.on("before_tool_call", async (event) => {
      if (event.toolName !== "deploy_service") {
        return;
      }

      const environment =
        typeof event.params.environment === "string" ? event.params.environment : "unknown";

      return {
        requireApproval: {
          title: "Deploy service",
          description: `Deploy service to ${environment}.`,
          severity: environment === "production" ? "critical" : "warning",
          allowedDecisions:
            environment === "production"
              ? ["allow-once", "deny"]
              : ["allow-once", "allow-always", "deny"],
          timeoutMs: 120_000,
          onResolution(decision) {
            console.log(`deploy approval resolved: ${decision}`);
          },
        },
      };
    });
  },
});

Write prompt text for the person who will approve the action:

• Keep title short and action-focused; the Gateway caps it at 80 characters.
• Keep description specific and bounded; the Gateway caps it at 512 characters.
• Include the action, target, and risk. Do not include secrets, tokens, or private payloads that should not appear in chat approval surfaces.
• severity defaults to "warning" when omitted. Use "critical" only for actions where the wrong decision could cause production damage or data loss.
• allowedDecisions defaults to ["allow-once", "allow-always", "deny"] when omitted. Pass ["allow-once", "deny"] when persistent trust is unsafe for that action.
• timeoutMs defaults to 120000 (2 minutes) and is capped at 600000 (10 minutes) regardless of the requested value.

Decision behavior

OpenClaw creates a pending approval with a plugin: ID, delivers it to the available approval surfaces, and waits for a decision.

Only the exact allow-once and allow-always decisions permitted by the request allow execution. Unknown, malformed, mismatched, missing, and timed-out decisions fail closed. The legacy timeoutBehavior field remains accepted for plugin compatibility but is deprecated and ignored; do not set it in new hooks.

allow-always is only durable when the requesting plugin or runtime implements that persistence. For ordinary before_tool_call.requireApproval hooks, OpenClaw treats allow-once and allow-always as approval decisions for the current call and passes the resolved value to onResolution. If your plugin offers allow-always, document and implement exactly what future calls it trusts.

If the hook also returns params, OpenClaw applies those parameter changes only after the approval succeeds. A lower-priority hook can still block after a higher-priority hook requested approval.

allowedDecisions limits the buttons and commands shown to the user. The Gateway rejects a resolve attempt for any decision the request did not offer.

Route approval prompts

Approval prompts can resolve in local UI surfaces or in chat channels that support approval handling. To forward plugin approval prompts to explicit chat targets, configure approvals.plugin:

{
  approvals: {
    plugin: {
      enabled: true,
      mode: "targets",
      agentFilter: ["main"],
      targets: [{ channel: "slack", to: "U12345678" }],
    },
  },
}

approvals.plugin is independent from approvals.exec. Enabling exec approval forwarding does not route plugin approval prompts, and enabling plugin approval forwarding does not change host exec policy.

When a prompt includes manual approval text, resolve it with one of the offered decisions:

/approve <id> allow-once
/approve <id> allow-always
/approve <id> deny

See Advanced exec approvals for the full forwarding model, same-chat approval behavior, native channel delivery, and channel-specific approver rules.

Codex native permissions

Codex native permission prompts can also travel through plugin approvals, but they have different ownership than plugin-authored hooks.

• Codex app-server approval requests route through OpenClaw after Codex review.
• The native hook permission_request relay can ask through plugin.approval.request when that relay is enabled.
• MCP tool approval elicitations route through plugin approvals when Codex marks _meta.codex_approval_kind as "mcp_tool_call".

See Codex harness runtime for the Codex-specific behavior and fallback rules.

Troubleshooting

The tool says plugin approvals are unavailable. No approval UI or configured approval route accepted the request. Connect an approval-capable client, use a channel that supports same-chat /approve, or configure approvals.plugin.

allow-always appears but the next call prompts again. The generic plugin approval flow does not automatically persist trust for arbitrary hooks. Persist plugin-owned trust in your plugin after onResolution("allow-always"), or offer only allow-once and deny.

/approve rejects the decision. The request restricted allowedDecisions. Use one of the decisions printed in the prompt.

A Discord, Matrix, Slack, or Telegram prompt routes differently from exec approvals. Plugin approvals and exec approvals use separate config and may use different authorization checks. Verify approvals.plugin and the channel's plugin approval support instead of only checking approvals.exec.

Related

• Plugin hooks
• Building plugins
• Advanced exec approvals
• Gateway protocol
• Codex harness runtime