# Approve your first reply

A held draft sits in Needs You with the message it answers directly above it. Read both, edit anything you want, and approve — your edit is what goes out, unchanged. What approval does not do is teach: it releases one message. If the change you made will recur, write it down as a rule or a memory in the same sitting, or you will make it again next week.

- **Status:** Available
- **Audience:** both
- **Channels:** email
- **In the app:** #/needs-you, #/approvals, #/inbox
- **Last verified:** 2026-09-10
- **Canonical:** https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/getting-started/first-approval/

## Before you decide anything

Read the original message first. The queue shows it above the draft rather than on another screen, and that layout is not decoration — the most common bad approval is a good reply to a question the customer did not ask, approved by somebody who read only the reply.

Note the age of the thread as you read. A held draft is not a slow reply; it is no reply at all. Nothing has been handed to any provider, there is no message in flight, nothing in your sent folder, and the customer's own clock is still running. That is also why the queue is ranked rather than chronological — a held answer to a first enquiry is a different kind of debt from one on a thread that has run for a week.

## The decision itself

1. Open `#/needs-you` and pick the oldest item you understand.
   - Result: The message and the proposed reply are together, with the rule that held it recorded against the decision.
2. Edit freely. The subject, the body and the recipients are all yours to change.
   - Result: Your version is what is sent. Connect does not re-draft over an edit, so there is no risk of your wording being replaced at the last moment.
3. Approve.
   - Result: The send runs through the same boundary a person's own send uses. Until the provider's own acknowledgement comes back, the state is uncertain rather than sent — Connect does not claim delivery it cannot evidence.
4. If the draft was wrong rather than merely imperfect, reject it instead.
   - Result: The rejection is recorded against the thread and the engine does not immediately produce the same reply again.

> **Careful** The mailbox a reply is sent from is not editable at approval time. It was settled by the mailbox's role and the thread it belongs to. If the wrong address is proposing to answer, the fix is the mailbox's role on `#/mailboxes`, not this draft.

## What the first approval teaches

Less than people assume, and being clear about that saves a month of confusion. Approving records who released the message and when. It does not create a rule, and a rejection on its own is a decision about one message rather than a lesson.

| You changed | Write it down as | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| The tone or structure | A standing instruction | Future drafts on that channel |
| A fact that was wrong | A Knowledge entry | Every grounded answer |
| Something about this customer | A memory at the contact tier | This person only |
| Nothing — it was right | Nothing | Approve and move on |

The fourth row matters as much as the others. A draft that needed no edit is information: it is the evidence you will use later when deciding whether to loosen autonomy on that channel.

## When approving does not release the message

**Nothing visible happens** — The daily allowance was spent. Your approval is recorded and the send waits; the item stays in the queue until it goes.
**It fails immediately** — The recipient is suppressed. The suppression is shown with its origin, and a do-not-contact entry is not cleared casually.
**The draft you approved is stale** — The thread moved on while it waited. Regenerating gives the model the newer messages; editing the old draft does not.
**The item is not in the queue at all** — The channel is on `draft_only`, which writes a reply and queues nothing for approval. Change the mode, or send from the conversation.

## Questions

### Who is allowed to approve?

Any workspace member permitted to send on that channel. The approval is recorded against the person, which is what lets the decision log answer 'who released this' months later without anyone having to remember.

### Can I approve several at once?

The queue is designed to be worked item by item, because each item is a decision with a different message behind it. If you find yourself wanting to approve in bulk, that is usually a sign the channel is ready for a narrower autonomy rule rather than a sign the queue needs a bulk button.

### What if I approve something I should not have?

Once the provider has acknowledged it, the message has gone — that is true of any mail system. What Connect gives you is the record: what was decided, by whom, under which rule, and what the provider said. Follow it with a correction to the customer and a memory or rule so the same draft is not produced again.

## Related

- [Your first pass through Needs You](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/getting-started/read-needs-you/)
- [Decide what Connect may do](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/getting-started/set-what-connect-may-do/)
- [Email in Connect](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/email/)
- [Find out why a reply was held](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/how-to/find-why-a-reply-was-held/)
- [Correct something Connect got wrong](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/how-to/correct-a-mistake/)
- [A working day with Connect](https://connectbyjbrh.com/docs/getting-started/daily-routine/)

## What this page is based on

- docs-source/sources/GENERAL.md §5 — Needs You, approvals and the audit trail
- Connect capability registry (docs-source/facts.py) — held_draft_approval, send_evidence
- docs-source/sources/GENERAL.md §3 — canonical threads and triage