# Approve All > Prepare a human bulk-approval of the whole approvable review backlog — show what would be promoted to canonical, take an in-session confirmation, then hand the human the single pre-filled `gazette approve --all --by human` line to fire themselves. Use when running bureau:approve-all, or when the user asks to approve everything / approve the whole queue / bulk-approve at once. The AI never runs approve and never signs `--by human`. - Skill: `xiaolai/approve-all` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add xiaolai/approve-all` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/xiaolai/approve-all/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Product & Planning - Author: xiaolai (https://skillmd.com/u/xiaolai) - Updated: 2026-09-17 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/xiaolai/approve-all --- # Approve-all — a one-confirmation human bulk-approval, prepared not forged This is the fast path to draining the review backlog: promote every approvable claim to `canonical` in one go. The catch it respects — the AI must not sign for you. So it does everything up to the write (find the batch, show it, confirm it) and then hands you the exact one-line command to run yourself. You fire it; the log records `by: human` because a human really did. ## Why the AI hands off instead of committing `canonical · by human` is supposed to attest that a human approved (ADR-0004, BUREAU.md). The decision log is unsigned, so `by:` is a claim, not proof — the whole gate rests on the AI never writing `by: human`. An in-session "yes" cannot be seen at the log layer: if the AI's process ran the approval, every `by: human` entry would become indistinguishable from a fabricated one. Running the command yourself (via the `!` prefix) keeps the attestation true at one keystroke. `approve --all` is also a **documented weakening** (ADR-0005) — it promotes the backlog sight-unseen — which is all the more reason it is the human's to fire. ## Steps 1. **Locate the workspace.** Read `bureau.json` for the workspace dir (default `canon`); honor `--workspace `. If no workspace exists, tell the user to run `bureau:init` first and stop. 2. **Build and split the queue.** Run `node "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/press/bin/gazette.mjs" review --json --dir ` — invoke it with the `${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}` variable **literally**; never substitute a hand-picked `~/.claude/plugins/cache/…//…` path (a stale cache silently runs the wrong engine). Parse `{items, counts, total}` and split by kind: - **approvable** — `approve` and `reapprove`: exactly what `approve --all` promotes. - **not covered** — `confirm-dependencies`, `resolve-conflict`, `repair-edge`: `approve --all` leaves these untouched (a confirm can't be an approve, a conflict needs a decision, a broken edge needs an edit). They stay in the queue. If `review --json` exits non-zero or returns output that is not valid JSON, report the raw error and stop — never fabricate the queue or hand off a run command against an unknown backlog. 3. **Stop if there is nothing to approve.** If the approvable set is empty, report "nothing to bulk-approve" plus any not-covered items, and stop. Never confirm approving an empty batch. 4. **Show the batch, then confirm in-session.** List the approvable titles (what would become `canonical`) and the not-covered items. Then take the confirmation with `AskUserQuestion`: "Approve all N page(s) as canonical — by you (`by: human`)?" with options **Approve all** and **Cancel**. On **Cancel**, stop — nothing is approved. 5. **Hand off the one line (never run it yourself).** On **Approve all**, resolve the absolute path to `gazette.mjs` (expand `${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}`) and print the ready-to-run command, `--dir` pre-filled, for the human to fire with the `!` prefix: ``` ! /press/bin/gazette.mjs approve --all --dir --by human ``` Explain briefly: running it via `!` executes it **as you**, so `by: human` is true; it is non-interactive, so it proceeds without a y/n and content-binds each page (capturing every digest, refusing any page it cannot bind). Do **not** run `gazette approve` yourself, and do **not** pass `--by human` from your own process. 6. **Offer the reviewed alternative.** Note that if approving sight-unseen is too blunt, a per-page reviewed batch keeps human authorship AND records exactly the bytes vetted: `gazette review --json > decisions.json` → prune it → `approve --from decisions.json --by human`; and that `bureau:codex-review` can pre-screen the queue first. ## Rules 1. **The AI never approves and never signs `--by human`.** It prepares and hands off; the human runs the one line. This is the non-negotiable core of the gate. 2. **Confirm before handing off.** Always show the batch and take an explicit in-session confirmation first — an empty or unconfirmed batch is never handed a run command. 3. **Only approve/reapprove are in scope.** Name the not-covered items so the user knows the queue is not fully cleared; route them to `bureau:review`. 4. **Name the weakening.** `approve --all` promotes sight-unseen (ADR-0005); say so, and offer the `approve --from` per-page alternative. 5. **Read-only until the handoff.** The skill only reads the queue; the sole state change happens when the human runs the printed line. ## Output format Report, in order: (1) the **workspace**; (2) **would approve** — the count and titles that become `canonical`; (3) **not covered** — the `confirm`/`resolve`/`repair` items left in the queue; (4) **your one line** — the exact `! … approve --all --dir --by human` command, plus the `approve --from` reviewed-batch alternative. ## Example Context: a repo with a bureau canon; six proposed claims and one contested pair await review. user: "bureau:approve-all" assistant: "In `bureau/`, `approve --all` would promote **6** page(s) to canonical: [Retry Policy, Token TTL, …]. **Not covered:** 1 resolve-conflict (Auth model × Session model) — that needs a decision, not an approval, so it stays in the queue. Approve all 6 as canonical, by you?" [AskUserQuestion → Approve all] "Fire this yourself — it runs as you, so `by: human` is true: `! /Users/…/press/bin/gazette.mjs approve --all --dir bureau --by human` (Prefer to vet per page? `gazette review --json > decisions.json`, prune it, then `approve --from decisions.json --by human`.)" The AI shows the batch, confirms, and hands off — it never runs approve or signs `--by human`. The contested pair is surfaced as out of scope, not silently bulk-approved. ## Scope note This skill ONLY prepares a human bulk-approval and hands off the command. It does not run any approval, capture sessions, compile the logbook, resolve conflicts, or render the board. It is invoked by `bureau:approve-all`, and is the bulk companion to `bureau:review` (per-page human gate) and `bureau:codex-review` (Codex pre-screens the queue as your representative).