Approval Workflows for Agent Payments

Approval workflows let you keep low-risk agent payments fast while routing exceptional cases through human review. In Conto, approvals are part of the payment control center, not an afterthought layered on later.

When to Use Approval Workflows

Approval workflows are a strong fit when you need any of the following:

Payments above a finance threshold
New recipients that have not built trust yet
Category-specific review, such as treasury or vendor onboarding flows
Role-based approvals for finance, ops, or compliance
Dual control or sequential review for larger transfers

How the Flow Works

How Conto Matches a Workflow

Conto evaluates active workflows in priority order and picks the first workflow whose trigger conditions match the payment context. Workflow matching runs for every non-denied payment. A matching workflow can therefore hold an otherwise policy-approved request until the required approvers make a decision. If the policy engine itself requires human approval and no custom workflow matches, Conto creates a one-review approval request for an authorized Owner, Admin, or Manager. This system-managed fallback does not allow self-approval: the person or agent that initiated the payment cannot clear their own held request. The payment response includes the approval request ID and status URL so your integration can track the review to completion.

Supported trigger conditions

Trigger	What it matches
`minimumAmount`	Amounts at or above a threshold
`currency`	Currency-specific review
`categories`	Category-based review, such as vendor or infrastructure spend
`agentIds`	A specific set of agent IDs inside the organization
`agentTypes`	Specific agent frameworks or classes
`newRecipients`	First-time recipients
`counterpartyTrustLevels`	Selected trust levels, such as unknown or suspicious

This makes approval workflows a good complement to trust scoring and counterparty rules. For example, you can auto-approve trusted vendors while forcing review for unknown recipients. agentIds lets you bind a workflow to selected agents without applying the same review path to every agent in the organization.

Workflow Settings That Matter

Setting	What it does
`priority`	Higher-priority workflows match first
`approvals.required`	Number of approvals needed before a payment moves forward
`expiresAfterHours`	Expiration window for pending requests
`approvals.allowRequester`	Whether the requester can approve their own request. Defaults to `false`
`approvals.approvers.roles`	Approval-capable roles only: `OWNER`, `ADMIN`, or `MANAGER`. Read-only roles (`VIEWER`, `MEMBER`) are rejected
`approvals.approvers.membershipIds`	Explicit organization members allowed to approve. Each must hold an approval-capable role
`approvals.order`	Uses `sequential` for ordered approval

Any rejection ends the workflow immediately. Approvals accumulate until the required approval count is reached. When the final approval is recorded, Conto immediately invokes the payment execution path for Conto-managed wallets. The approval remains recorded if custody execution fails, and the request stays visible as needing execution attention. External and smart-contract wallets still require their manual execution and confirmation flow.

The approval decision, request state, and audit entry commit in one database transaction. A successful response therefore never represents a decision whose audit record was silently dropped. When a decision is final, Conto also emits an approval.approved or approval.denied webhook to your organization webhook URL (see Webhooks). Before a managed wallet sends funds, Conto also re-evaluates the current policy set and fails closed if the controls deny the payment or cannot be evaluated.

Configure Workflows Through the API

Use the authenticated workflow API when approval routing is managed from your own control plane or infrastructure-as-code process:

Method	Endpoint	Purpose
`GET`	`/api/approval-workflows`	List workflows and filter by `enabled`
`POST`	`/api/approval-workflows`	Create a workflow
`GET`	`/api/approval-workflows/{workflowId}`	Read one workflow
`PATCH`	`/api/approval-workflows/{workflowId}`	Update supported workflow settings
`DELETE`	`/api/approval-workflows/{workflowId}`	Delete a workflow with no pending reviews

Create a sequential two-person review:

curl -X POST https://conto.finance/api/approval-workflows \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $CONTO_ORG_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "Large treasury payments",
    "description": "Two reviewers for large transfers",
    "triggers": {
      "minimumAmount": 5000,
      "currency": "USDC"
    },
    "approvals": {
      "required": 2,
      "order": "sequential",
      "allowRequester": false,
      "approvers": {
        "type": "specific_members",
        "membershipIds": ["member_finance", "member_security"]
      }
    },
    "expiresAfterHours": 24,
    "escalation": {
      "afterHours": 4,
      "roles": ["OWNER"],
      "membershipIds": []
    },
    "priority": 50,
    "enabled": true
  }'

The response returns the stable workflow ID, normalized triggers, reviewer selection, ordered steps for sequential review, timeout, escalation targets, enabled state, usage count, and timestamps. Use GET /api/organizations/me/members to find reviewer membership IDs. A sequential workflow requires specific members, and the membershipIds order defines the approval steps. A role-based workflow uses order: "any_order". PATCH updates only the fields you send, except triggers, which replaces the current trigger set. Deletion returns WORKFLOW_HAS_PENDING_REQUESTS until the workflow’s active reviews are resolved.

External Approval Channels

Approval requests can be delivered to external channels so finance or ops teams can act without logging into Conto for every review. Supported channels include:

Slack
Email
Telegram
WhatsApp
Webhook

Each decision records the acting channel, and Conto keeps an audit trail of who approved, when they approved, and how the request was resolved. For step-by-step setup, see /guides/external-approvals.

Recommended Patterns

Pattern 1: Single approval for large payments

Setting	Example
Trigger	`minimumAmount = 100`
Required approvals	`1`
Approver roles	`OWNER`, `ADMIN`
Best for	Day-to-day spend that only needs review above a threshold

Pattern 2: Review first-time recipients

Setting	Example
Trigger	`newRecipients = true`
Required approvals	`1`
Approver roles	`ADMIN`
Best for	Preventing agents from sending funds to unknown addresses without review

Pattern 3: Dual control for sensitive transfers

Setting	Example
Trigger	`minimumAmount = 5000`
Required approvals	`2`
Self approval	`false`
Best for	Treasury, vendor onboarding, or high-value transfers

Pattern 4: Sequential approval for finance + security

Setting	Example
Specific approvers	`finance lead`, then `security lead`
Sequential approval	`true`
Best for	Controls that require ordered sign-off from multiple stakeholders

Pattern 5: Agent-specific review in a shared organization

Setting	Example
Trigger	`minimumAmount = 0`, `agentIds = ["agent_ap"]`
Required approvals	`1`
Best for	Giving one agent a dedicated approval path

Pair Approval Workflows with Trust Scoring

One of the highest-signal combinations is:

Use trust scoring to classify counterparties.
Let trusted or verified recipients flow normally.
Route unknown or deteriorating counterparties into approval workflows.

That gives you a fast path for established counterparties and a controlled path for new or risky ones.

Canonical Approval Architecture

The most common production stack looks like this:

Policy engine blocks clearly disallowed payments outright.
Trust scoring enriches the recipient before the payment is evaluated.
Approval workflows catch the gray area between auto-approve and hard deny.
External channels deliver requests to the real stakeholders.
Audit logs and webhooks make the outcome visible to finance and operations systems.

External Approvals

Connect Slack, email, Telegram, WhatsApp, or webhooks

Trust Scoring

Use counterparty trust as an approval trigger

Securing Agents

See where approvals fit in a layered policy model

Architecture Patterns

Visual reference for approval and payment flows

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Changelog

Approval Workflows for Agent Payments

Approval Workflows for Agent Payments

When to Use Approval Workflows

How the Flow Works

How Conto Matches a Workflow

Supported trigger conditions

Workflow Settings That Matter

Configure Workflows Through the API

External Approval Channels

Recommended Patterns

Pattern 1: Single approval for large payments

Pattern 2: Review first-time recipients

Pattern 3: Dual control for sensitive transfers

Pattern 4: Sequential approval for finance + security

Pattern 5: Agent-specific review in a shared organization

Pair Approval Workflows with Trust Scoring

Canonical Approval Architecture

External Approvals

Trust Scoring

Securing Agents

Architecture Patterns

​Approval Workflows for Agent Payments

​When to Use Approval Workflows

​How the Flow Works

​How Conto Matches a Workflow

​Supported trigger conditions

​Workflow Settings That Matter

​Configure Workflows Through the API

​External Approval Channels

​Recommended Patterns

​Pattern 1: Single approval for large payments

​Pattern 2: Review first-time recipients

​Pattern 3: Dual control for sensitive transfers

​Pattern 4: Sequential approval for finance + security

​Pattern 5: Agent-specific review in a shared organization

​Pair Approval Workflows with Trust Scoring

​Canonical Approval Architecture

​Related Guides

External Approvals

Trust Scoring

Securing Agents

Architecture Patterns

Approval Workflows for Agent Payments

When to Use Approval Workflows

How the Flow Works

How Conto Matches a Workflow

Supported trigger conditions

Workflow Settings That Matter

Configure Workflows Through the API

External Approval Channels

Recommended Patterns

Pattern 1: Single approval for large payments

Pattern 2: Review first-time recipients

Pattern 3: Dual control for sensitive transfers

Pattern 4: Sequential approval for finance + security

Pattern 5: Agent-specific review in a shared organization

Pair Approval Workflows with Trust Scoring

Canonical Approval Architecture

Related Guides