Choose what your agent can do

4 minute read · Chats & Local Agents

Choose how much independence an agent should have for this conversation. For a first project, supervised work gives you a chance to review unfamiliar steps as they arise.

• Choose a level of access
• Read an approval
• Choose how closely to supervise
• Handle an approval in parallel work
• Ask for a smaller action when needed
• Permission and approval controls

Choose a level of access#

Vortex supports supervised, auto-edit, auto and full-access modes. The selected provider receives the supported policy. Available behavior depends on that provider and the particular tool; choosing Auto does not promise that every consequential action runs without a question.

Planning helps you discuss an approach before implementing it. When you want actual changes, make that intent and the allowed project clear.

Read an approval#

An approval names an action or question for the current task and run. Inspect the command, destination or requested change. Accept when it matches your instruction, reject when it does not, or explain the boundary in a follow-up.

For example, allowing an agent to edit a local article page does not automatically authorize publishing it or sending real email. Saved MCP tools also apply their own confirmation rules. Credentials are resolved by Vortex rather than printed in resource listings.

Use Stop to end the run; its pending approvals become invalid. A later run cannot reuse that approval. See follow-up delivery and MCP access.

Choose how closely to supervise#

The execution modes are Supervised, Auto-edit, Auto and Full access, alongside the distinction between planning and ordinary work. They are passed to the chosen provider's protocol. Use Supervised when you are learning the project or working with unfamiliar resources. A mode name is not a promise that every provider treats every tool identically.

An approval card belongs to a specific task, run and request. Read its action details, any questions and the available responses. If it proposes a database write, remote command or external message, check the target and scope as well as the verb. A request to make a local page look better does not implicitly authorize pushing a repository or deploying it.

Handle an approval in parallel work#

When several chats are active, open the exact chat requesting attention. A coordinator can surface a child's pending approval, but the user still answers the child's actual request. Approving an unrelated later run cannot unblock the earlier one. If you stop a run, its pending approvals are invalidated; a new run must ask again where needed.

Before granting access to an external MCP server, inspect what it can do and what account or resource it reaches. Vortex's own tools have routine-operation and always-confirm policies in addition to provider permissions. A tool being discoverable does not make its output or instructions trustworthy.

Ask for a smaller action when needed#

If a request is broader than intended, ask the agent to explain its purpose and propose a narrower step. For example: “Read the migration and show the intended schema change before running it.” Denying a write can still allow useful read-only inspection. After an approved change, verify the files, query result or preview behavior; an approval is authorization, not proof that the operation succeeded.

Permission and approval controls#

The composer shows the current access mode. Read its explanation before changing it: mode names map to the selected provider's supported behavior and are not a universal promise that every action runs unattended.

An approval card belongs to a specific action in a specific run. Read its command/resource and consequence, then choose the displayed approval or rejection. A persistent approval, when offered, has a wider effect than approving that single action. Answering an agent's clarification question supplies information; it does not automatically approve unrelated destructive work.

Stop requests cancellation and invalidates the active run's pending work as supported by the provider. It does not undo completed edits. An approval in a linked chat must be handled in that linked run. Vortex tool confirmations can still be required for critical actions even when routine edits run directly. See MCP confirmation settings.