Approvals & safety

How HISAB decides what runs automatically and what needs your nod.

Operating modes

Pick the mode from the Mode dropdown in the chat breadcrumb (or in Settings). It controls what the AI is allowed to do with your workbook. Four modes are available:

Ask Only — Read-only. The AI can read, analyse and propose, but every write tool is blocked at the gate. Explore live books with zero risk.
Action — The AI executes directly. How each write is confirmed depends on the Approval setting below.
Plan — The AI drafts a step-by-step plan first and waits for your nod before it starts writing. Once execution begins, writes flow according to the Approval setting, exactly like Action.
Automate — Built for turning a working analysis into a reusable automation: each successful Python run is auto-saved as a draft you can name, run, or publish from the Automations tab. Writes are gated the same way as Action.

Outside Ask Only, a separate Approval dropdown decides how writes are confirmed (it is hidden in Ask Only, where nothing is written):

Ask each — Genuinely risky writes wait for your explicit approval; safe ones pass through (see below). You approve one card at a time.
Auto — Writes run without a card — except for a few privileged tools that always ask (see below).

What "Ask each" stops to ask about

Ask each is deliberate, not noisy. Low-risk writes pass through without a card; only genuinely consequential ones queue. HISAB asks before it:

Overwrites a non-empty cell, or clears formatting / clears a whole range (clear_format, clear_all)
Writes a formula that references another sheet
Deletes or inserts rows or columns
Creates, deletes, renames, moves, hides or protects a sheet
Merges or unmerges, sorts, or copies a range

It does not stop to ask for writing a value or same-sheet formula into an empty cell, or for pure formatting (column widths, cell styles, freeze panes, comments) — those run straight through.

Tools that always ask — even in Auto

A small set of privileged tools surface an approval card on every call regardless of the Approval setting, because each one changes the rules for later tool calls:

Switch operating mode — e.g. flipping to Automate. A mode change is a privilege change, so it always needs your explicit nod (the card is the consent question).
Create a new workbook — it becomes the active book and steals focus, so it can't happen silently.
Grant folder access — widens what files HISAB can reach on disk.

The approval card

When a write needs approval, an inline card appears right in the chat stream where the tool call happened — not in a separate queue. The card shows a plain-English description of what the AI is about to do. For cell writes it also shows a Cell / Current / Proposed diff table so you can see exactly what changes and what it changes to. Three buttons:

Approve — run this one write.
Reject — skip it; the AI is told the write was rejected and continues.
Approve for session — run this write and auto-approve later writes for the rest of the chat session. (Privileged tools above still ask each time.) The flag clears when you reset the chat or close Excel.

You can keep chatting while a card waits. If no decision lands within five minutes the write is auto-rejected so the AI isn't left hanging, and the card shows "Timed out".

Workbook close cancels pending approvals. If you close the workbook (or Excel) while a card is still waiting, every pending approval is cancelled as a rejection so nothing is left blocked. Re-ask if you still want the change.

Review Changes

While the AI works, the Review Changes panel above the chat box logs every value-changing write — the cell address, its value before, its value after, and whether it was a value, formula, or clear. It is a live, per-turn view: it resets when you send your next prompt, so it shows what this turn did, not a permanent history. Format-only operations (styles, widths, freeze panes) don't appear, since they don't change data.