#4771 added an explicit relay-failure 409 (code: gateway_run_unavailable)
to /api/approval/respond so a gateway approval whose run is gone keeps its
card actionable instead of silently failing. But the 409 was emitted
regardless of backend.
On the DEFAULT local in-process backend, every guarded command parks an
entry in tools.approval._gateway_queues (via _await_gateway_decision), and
the local streaming notify callback mirrors it into _pending tagged with
_GATEWAY_MIRROR_FLAG. There is no gateway run and no _STREAM_RUN_IDS entry
by design. _gateway_pending_approval_without_run_id() therefore returned
True for that purely local approval, so the handler 409'd
("active run unavailable") and refused to resolve an approval that resolves
perfectly well locally. Local-backend users hit this on every approval
click (reported by b3nw on Discord; independently filed as #4948 by
claw-io, which also notes the local-runtime trigger).
Fix: gate the 409 on the WebUI actually running the gateway chat backend
(webui_gateway_chat_enabled). Local approvals fall through to the local
resolution path; the legitimate #4771 gateway behaviour is unchanged.
Tests:
- New tests/test_issue4771_local_approval_regression.py drives the real
_handle_approval_respond handler and asserts: local backend -> 200 +
agent thread unblocked; gateway backend -> 409 preserved. These fail
before the fix (409) and pass after.
- The two existing #4771 tests that asserted the 409 are updated to pin
HERMES_WEBUI_CHAT_BACKEND=gateway at respond time, since the 409 is now
gateway-deployment behaviour.
Reported-by: b3nw
Reported-by: claw-io (#4948)
These two symbols were removed from tools.approval when the agent renamed
has_pending -> has_blocking_approval (checks gateway queue, not _pending dict)
and dropped pop_pending. They were only in the import block — never used in
any test body — but their absence caused the entire file to skip via the
APPROVAL_AVAILABLE guard.
Before: 595 collected, 579 passed, 16 skipped
After: 595 collected, 595 passed, 0 skipped
Co-authored-by: Nathan Esquenazi <nesquena@gmail.com>
* fix: surface approval prompt in UI instead of getting stuck in Thinking
When a dangerous command was detected during streaming, the approval system
would call submit_pending() but no SSE 'approval' event would be emitted to
the frontend. The agent thread either blocked indefinitely (gateway path) or
returned an approval_required status the UI never saw (EXEC_ASK path). Either
way the chat UI stayed stuck in 'Thinking...' with no prompt shown.
Root cause: streaming.py used HERMES_EXEC_ASK=1 but never registered a
register_gateway_notify() callback. Without it, check_all_command_guards()
fell back to the legacy polling path (submit_pending only), which relies on
on_tool() polling -- but on_tool() fires *before* the tool runs, so by the
time the terminal tool detected the dangerous command and called submit_pending,
the approval event had already missed its window.
Fix (streaming.py):
- Register a gateway-style notify_cb via register_gateway_notify() before the
agent runs. The callback calls put('approval', ...) to emit the SSE event
the moment a dangerous command is detected, regardless of on_tool() timing.
- Unregister via unregister_gateway_notify() in the finally block to unblock
any threads still waiting if the stream ends or is cancelled mid-approval.
- Keep the on_tool() fallback poll for older approval module versions.
Fix (routes.py):
- Import and call resolve_gateway_approval() in _handle_approval_respond().
This unblocks the agent thread parked in entry.event.wait() when the user
clicks Allow or Deny in the UI. Without this call the thread would block
until the 5-minute gateway timeout.
Tests (tests/test_approval_unblock.py):
- 16 new tests covering: resolve_gateway_approval() event signalling, deny/
session/once choices, resolve_all, notify_cb registration/firing/cleanup,
unregister signals blocked entries, full end-to-end streaming simulation,
module symbol exports, and HTTP endpoint regressions.
515 tests pass (499 existing + 16 new).
* feat: full approval UI — i18n buttons, keyboard shortcut, loading state, scoping fix
---------
Co-authored-by: Nathan Esquenazi <nesquena@gmail.com>
Rod Boev