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[FAQ] Add: external admission authority via environment protection rules#28936

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pelikhan merged 2 commits intomainfrom
faq/issue-484-d1de2b86fc397d40
Apr 28, 2026
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[FAQ] Add: external admission authority via environment protection rules#28936
pelikhan merged 2 commits intomainfrom
faq/issue-484-d1de2b86fc397d40

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@chrizbo chrizbo commented Apr 28, 2026

Adds a new FAQ entry under the Guardrails section addressing whether external human approval can be required before safe outputs are applied.

What changed

New entry: "Can I require external human approval before safe outputs are applied?"

The entry:

  • Clarifies the distinction between guardrail validation (internal) and external admission authority
  • Explains that GitHub Environment protection rules on custom safe output jobs provide a genuine external admission boundary
  • Includes a minimal YAML example showing how to configure an environment-gated custom safe output job
  • Honestly notes that the admission policy is still defined internally by repository owners, even though each execution admission can require external approval

Source

Sourced from community discussion feedback captured in github/agentic-workflows#484. This is a new entry — no existing FAQ entry covered external admission authority.

Type

New FAQ entry added to existing Guardrails section.

Generated by Feedback Question Answerer · ● 934.8K ·

Adds a new entry under Guardrails answering the question of whether
external human approval can be required before safe outputs are applied.
Explains the guardrail-vs-admission distinction and documents the
GitHub Environment protection rules pattern for fail-closed external
admission gates using custom safe output jobs.

Closes github/agentic-workflows#484

Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
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Smoke Temporary ID encountered failures. Check the logs for details.

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✅ smoke-ci: safeoutputs CLI comment + comment-memory run (25052645435)

Generated by Smoke CI for issue #28936 ·

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Generated by Smoke CI for issue #28936 ·

For a fail-closed **external admission gate** before sensitive operations like deployments or credential use, apply **[GitHub Environment protection rules](https://docs.github.com/en/actions/managing-workflow-runs-and-deployments/managing-deployments/managing-environments-for-deployment#required-reviewers)** to a [custom safe output job](/gh-aw/reference/custom-safe-outputs/). The job pauses until a designated reviewer outside the workflow system explicitly approves. No approval means no execution.

```yaml wrap
safe-outputs:
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@copilot declare job that needs detection and add this job to safe-outputs.needs to interleave manual confirmation before the safe outputs job

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Updated in f2438b3. The example now declares a top-level approval-gate job with needs: detection (so it runs after automated threat scanning) and uses safe-outputs.needs: [approval-gate] to interleave the manual reviewer confirmation before the built-in safe_outputs job runs.

…afe-outputs.needs

Agent-Logs-Url: https://github.com/github/gh-aw/sessions/7f90a3d5-3450-4da8-b7fc-673093cdfe0e

Co-authored-by: pelikhan <4175913+pelikhan@users.noreply.github.com>
Copilot AI requested a review from pelikhan April 28, 2026 14:29
@pelikhan pelikhan marked this pull request as ready for review April 28, 2026 14:31
Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings April 28, 2026 14:31
@pelikhan pelikhan merged commit c33cb48 into main Apr 28, 2026
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@pelikhan pelikhan deleted the faq/issue-484-d1de2b86fc397d40 branch April 28, 2026 14:32
@github-actions github-actions Bot mentioned this pull request Apr 28, 2026
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3 participants