Control
Approvals and questions
When an action is set to Ask me, it waits for you. You see exactly what the AI app wants to do, and it runs once, only if you approve.
Review a request
A request that waits for you shows in Tasks in Kin, under Waiting, in Actions to approve. Each one shows:
- which AI app is asking, and which account and action it wants to use,
- a sentence saying what will happen, and the app's own reason when it gives one,
- the exact details the app wants to send, such as the recipient, the title or the text.
Then choose:
| Choice | What happens |
|---|---|
| Approve once | Runs this exact request once, with exactly the details you saw. |
| Deny | The request does not run, and the app is told you denied it. |
| Always allow this action | Sets the action to Allow for future requests, and runs this request once. |
You can add a note to your answer under Note for the app, such as "use the staging repo instead". Kin passes it to the AI app with your decision. Answered requests move to History.
What runs after you approve
- Kin runs the request once, with the details you approved and nothing else.
- Changing the action's rule ends a request that is still waiting, and so does a security hold on the connection. A pause stops it too.
- Kin never sends the same change twice. If the app retries, it gets the first outcome back.
How long the AI app waits
The AI app's call waits for your answer, so a quick approval lets it carry on in the same step. Set the wait in Settings, under AI apps and approvals, then Approval wait:
- Wait for an answer sets how long the call waits, from 15 seconds to 2 minutes, or Do not wait. The default is 1 minute.
- If you do not answer in time sets what happens next. Keep the request waiting lets you approve it for up to an hour after it was asked. Cancel the request ends it, so it can never run late.
No setting approves a request when time runs out. If you approve after the app stopped waiting, the app collects the result the next time it checks with Kin, and it hears how its waiting requests ended on its next call.
Questions from AI apps
An AI app can ask you a decision instead of guessing, such as which of two calendars to use. Questions show in Tasks, under Questions from your AI apps, as a yes or no question or with 2 to 6 options, and with the answer the app recommends and why. Choose an option and select Send answer, choose Write my own answer, or select Don't answer.
See what happened
Activity shows every call each AI app made, with the action, the connection, how it ended, how long it took, and when. Use Filters to narrow it by AI app, connection, account, outcome or time.
AI apps can also ask Kin what your other AI apps did, so one app can pick up where another left off.
Undo
Some changes can be taken back for a while afterwards. When one can, its entry in Activity shows an Undo button that says what it will do, and the AI app that made the change can ask for the Undo itself. On GitHub, that covers reopening or closing an issue or pull request, and an issue's labels.
Set how long Undo stays available in Settings, under AI apps and approvals, then Undo, from 5 minutes to 24 hours. The default is 30 minutes. An Undo is a change like any other, so your rules and Pause apply to it too.
Most actions cannot be undone, such as sending a message or making a payment. Kin never guesses how to reverse an action.