Connect is preparing work but sending nothing

Q: Why is the queue empty if things are being held?

Because draft_only holds without asking. It prepares the reply and stops, on purpose, so a workspace can watch what Connect would say without anybody having to keep saying no. Only ask_before_send puts an item in front of a person.

Four things stop an outbound action, and they apply in this order: the autonomy mode for that channel, a pending approval, the daily allowance, and the AI budget. Each looks identical from the conversation screen — a finished message that never left — so the fix is to identify which one is holding it rather than to retry.

Status: Available What this means
Audience: both
In the app: #/needs-you, #/autonomy, #/billing, #/autonomy-audit
Last verified: 2026-09-10
Product version: 6.3.2

What the symptom looks like#

Work is visibly being done. Threads are being read, replies are written, calls are planned. What does not happen is the last step: nothing appears in a sent folder, no recipient replies, and the conversation sits with a finished answer attached to it. On the phone side the equivalent is a follow-up that stays due instead of becoming a placed call.

This is a different symptom from Connect appearing to do nothing at all. If no drafts are being written either, the cause is upstream — see Connect appears to be doing nothing instead.

The four causes, in the order they apply#

Cause	How to recognise it	Where it is set	What clears it
Autonomy mode	Every channel is affected the same way, and nothing is queued for a decision at all	What Connect May Do, at contact, endpoint, channel or workspace scope	Changing the mode — `draft_only` never asks, so nothing arrives in the queue to approve
Waiting for approval	Items are in Needs You, each naming the action it wants	The same place: `ask_before_send`	A person approving them; there is nothing else that will
Daily allowance	Sends stop part-way through a day and resume the next	The workspace's plan	The allowance resetting, or a plan with a larger one
AI budget	Reasoning itself stops or narrows, so newer drafts also stop appearing	The workspace's spend controls	The budget window resetting, or the ceiling being raised

What Connect did complete#

Inbound material was fetched, canonicalised and attached to the right person and thread. Nothing was lost while sending was blocked.
The reply, message or call request was written in full, grounded in the same knowledge and memory it would have used had it gone out.
The autonomy decision was made and recorded — including the refusal, if a gate or a limit refused the action.
Where a person was needed, the item was queued in Needs You with the conversation it belongs to.

What Connect did not complete#

Nothing was handed to a mailbox, a messaging provider or the carrier, so there is no message in flight and no delivery attempt.
The recipient has seen nothing at all. A held reply is no reply rather than a slow one, and the customer's clock is still running.
No usage was booked for a send that did not happen, so the allowance was not consumed by the attempt.
Nothing was retried in the background. There is no hidden queue draining behind the screen — the action waits for the cause to clear.

What you can do#

Open What Connect May Do and read the mode in force for the channel, at the narrowest scope that applies.
Result If it is draft_only or off, that is the whole answer and the queue will stay empty however long you wait.
Open Needs You.
Result Items there are waiting for you, not for the software. This is the commonest cause, and the one that looks least like a fault.
Open Plan & Usage and read today's figures.
Result A spent allowance shows as usage against the plan's limit, not as an error on the conversation.
Read the decision log for the same period.
Result A refusal is recorded with the reason behind it, so the log distinguishes 'held for a person' from 'refused by a limit' without guesswork.

What an administrator can do, and when to escalate#

An administrator can change the autonomy mode, approve the queue, and see the plan's allowance and the spend controls. Those four cover almost every occurrence. If all four are clear — the mode permits sending, the queue is empty, the allowance has room and the budget is not exhausted — the cause is no longer in this page: look at the channel itself, because a disconnected mailbox or an unwell line produces the same silence from a different place.

Escalate to support when the decision log shows an approved action that never reached a provider, or a send that has stayed uncertain rather than becoming sent or failed. Quote the time and the channel; do not quote message content.

Questions#

Why is the queue empty if things are being held?

Because draft_only holds without asking. It prepares the reply and stops, on purpose, so a workspace can watch what Connect would say without anybody having to keep saying no. Only ask_before_send puts an item in front of a person.

Does a blocked send get retried automatically when the allowance resets?

An approved action waits for the allowance and goes when there is room. An action that was never approved does not send itself when a limit clears — the decision is still missing, and a limit lifting is not a decision.

Could one recipient be blocked while everything else sends?

Yes, and it is worth ruling out early: a suppression, an unsubscribe or a do-not-contact entry stops that recipient alone. The refusal names the origin, and a do-not-contact entry is not cleared casually.