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Docs / The Desk

The Desk

The one place a person makes decisions and approvals, phone first.

How approvals work

Decisions that belong to a person arrive on the Desk, on your phone. Each card leads with the question, a recommendation and its reasoning, and a card missing context is refused before it reaches you. Approvals are sorted by reversibility: a reversible action runs at once with a short undo window; an irreversible one, such as an outbound message or a payment, needs a deliberate confirmation first. Each decision is recorded with who made it, when and what they chose.

What the Desk does

  • Phone-first: one card per decision, question and recommendation first, options side by side, evidence attached
  • A card that depends on missing context or undefined terms is refused before it reaches a person
  • Reply by voice; the agent that owns the work picks up the reply in the same thread
  • Reversible actions run at once with a short undo window; irreversible ones need a deliberate confirmation
  • Every decision recorded with who made it, when and what they chose

The approval model, by category

  • What the category typically offers: Approval steps ask the same 'are you sure?' about every action.
  • What OCTOPUS does: Approvals are sorted by reversibility: reversible actions run at once with a short undo window, irreversible ones need a deliberate confirmation, and higher stakes ask for a more deliberate one. A decision card missing context is refused before it reaches a person.
  • Question to ask any vendor: How does your approval flow differ between a draft edit and an outbound payment?

More on the Desk: octo.ad/desk.