Permissions and approvals

Every tool Gluon can use has a permission that decides whether it runs straight away or asks you first. Reading and looking things up usually just runs; actions with side effects, such as sending an email or opening a website as you, ask.

The four permissions

Permission	What happens
Allow	The tool runs without asking.
Auto	A safety check, an AI reviewer, checks each call. It runs when the call is routine, or when your message clearly asked for exactly that action; otherwise Gluon asks you.
Ask	Gluon always asks before the tool runs.
Off	Gluon can’t use the tool at all.

Some tools offer only Allow or Off, because approving them would mean nothing: the chat, utility, recall, guide and background-task tools, and web search, which runs at the search provider as soon as it’s called.

What counts as “you asked for it” under Auto

Auto lets a call through when the message that started the reply explicitly names the action, its target and its scope, such as “Email the invoice to priya@example.com”. Earlier messages only help it understand words like “it”. Goals (“sort out my inbox”), questions, negations and text you pasted or forwarded never count as consent. Each request authorizes an action once; Gluon asks again if it tries to repeat it. Work Gluon started on its own, such as a scheduled task, is judged on the call alone.

Change a permission

• Settings → Connectors & tools → Gluon lists every built-in tool by its title, such as Send email, in groups. Choose a permission for each; choosing the default clears your change. The row shows Saved once the change is stored, or Couldn’t save with Retry.
• At the top of the list, search by a tool’s title or its name (such as email__send) and filter by permission: Allowed, Ask, Off or Changed, the tools you changed from their default. A dot beside a tool’s title marks the same.
• Until your saved permissions arrive, the page says Loading permissions… and shows placeholders instead of the controls.
• Your connected servers’ tools are under Settings → Connectors & tools, one server at a time. See Connectors.
• Memory and recall are switched in Settings → Memory. See Memory and recall.
• The info button beside a tool shows its name and exactly what the model receives: its description and input schema.
• Ask your Gluon “Which tools ask before running?” or “Is web search off?”. In a private chat it lists the built-in tools on Auto, Ask or Off with a button to their page, and your connectors’ tools with their permissions. Only you change a permission: ask Gluon to change one and it gives you the button to the page instead.

Your permissions apply to every chat and every agent. Groups have their own permissions for the group’s tools; see Assistants in groups.

Approving a call

When a tool asks, an approval card shows what will happen: the email with its recipients and attachments, the website and action for the browser, or the exact changes to a calendar item. Choose:

• Approve to run this call once;
• Deny to refuse it; Gluon carries on without it;
• Always allow to switch the tool to Allow everywhere, after confirming.

Approvals also wait in Needs you, with a push notification, so you can answer from any page or device. A scheduled task that reaches an Ask tool pauses until you answer.

If you switch a tool to Ask or Off while a call is waiting, the new setting wins: even an approved call that hasn’t run yet won’t run under Off.

Tools that ask by default

Everything else defaults to Allow. These default to Ask:

• Send email: sending email
• Open browser and Browser action: opening and using a website as you
• Share file link: creating a link anyone holding it can open
• Share to group: copying a private file into a group
• Schedule task and Update reminder: scheduling and changing agent tasks and reminders
• Reset sandbox: deleting every file in a workspace
• Change group drives: changing a group’s drive from your private chat
• Delete agent: deleting one of your custom agents

Create agent, Set agent instructions, Set agent tools and Turn on tools, an agent asking to turn on its own tools, always ask, so their permission offers only Ask or Off, and they run only from your own message. See Agents.

Some calls ask whatever the permission, except Off: in a group, when the group owner’s Gluon changes, deletes or cancels a calendar item another member created, it asks first and names the creator.

Built-in tools lists every tool with its default.

Files, Mail, Artifacts and Expenses in the workspace

Under Sandbox, four more permissions decide what Gluon’s workspace tools may read besides the workspace itself: Files, for your Drive files and chat attachments; Mail, for your email and its attachments, shown read-only at /mail; Artifacts, for your artifacts’ source, shown read-only at /artifacts; and Expenses, for your expense ledgers as CSV files, shown read-only at /expenses. Each is Allow or Off, and all four start as Allow. Turning one Off hides those folders from Gluon, Files’ in the trash too. With Artifacts Off, Gluon can still build artifacts, but can’t read a saved one’s source to change it. With Expenses Off, Gluon still answers questions about your expenses, but can’t build a spreadsheet or chart from them. In a group, the group’s own Files, Mail, Artifacts and Expenses settings apply.

Whatever these allow, Gluon only reads your files, mail, artifacts’ source and expenses. It creates and edits files only in its workspace. Deleting a file or an attachment moves it to the trash, and an email, after asking, to the inbox’s Deleted emails; only you restore them. See Drive.

Change group drives decides whether Gluon may change a group’s drive from your private chat; it asks by default. Every permission that applies must allow such a change: the tool’s own, the group’s setting for it and Change group drives. See Workspaces.

Limits that permissions can’t lift

• Email only goes to addresses on your allowed email addresses list, whatever the permission. See Email.
• Allow never lets Gluon act for another member, or approve something in a group on their behalf.