Docs

Runs, approvals & rollback

What happens when a job runs, how approval mode works, and how to undo.

A run is one execution of a job: on its schedule, on a trigger, or when you press Run. Every run produces a log you can read, and every write it makes can be undone as a group.

Run lifecycle

1
Scheduled
The next run time is computed from the job's schedule or your override.
2
Running
Steps execute in order (or in parallel where the job allows). Each step records what it read and produced.
3
Awaiting approval
If the job writes to your systems and approval mode is on, the run stops here with a preview of every change.
4
Completed
Outputs are delivered to their destinations and the run is closed with a summary.
5
Failed
A step errored or a guarantee was violated. Nothing partial is written; you are notified with the reason.

Approval mode

Jobs that only read and report (monitors, digests, reports) deliver straight away. Jobs that write — editing a directory, opening a pull request, sending outreach — can run in approval mode. Your Dot prepares the full change set and nothing is applied until you confirm.

Mode	Behaviour	Good for
Ask first	Every write waits for your approval.	Anything customer-facing or hard to undo.
Auto-apply safe fixes	Writes the job marks as safe go through; the rest wait.	Data hygiene, link fixes, formatting.
Auto-apply all	No approval step. Everything is still logged and reversible.	Reports into your own channels.

Builders declare which steps are safe to auto-apply. You choose the mode per job when you configure it; theApproval mode input on write-capable jobs is exactly this setting.

The run log

Every run records, per step:

what was read (sources, documents, addresses) with links,
what was produced (intermediate results, drafts),
what was written, where, and the previous value.

Run log (abridged)

run  2026-10-05T07:00Z  weekly-competitive-report@1.4.2  status=completed  27m14s

01 snapshot_and_diff   read 8 sites · 3 pricing pages changed
02 collect_signals     read 14 job posts · 2 press releases · 41 posts
03 cluster_and_rank    produced 5 themes
04 write_brief         wrote slack:#competitive-intel  (1 message, 2 attachments)

guarantees  every_field_has_source ✓   no_writes_outside_destination ✓

Rollback

Writes are grouped by run. From a run's page you can roll back the whole run; the job restores previous values where the destination supports it (sheets, databases, CMS drafts, pull requests) and posts a correction where it does not (chat messages, emails). Rollback is itself logged.