Permissions: what the operator may do on its own
Which actions run on their own, which ask first, and which are off.
Permissions is the page under Settings where you decide what the operator may do without asking you. Every action it can take on your account has a row, and each row takes one of three answers: Always allow, Ask first, or Never. Reading is never a question: the operator may look at anything in your account, because looking is not doing.
The three answers
Always allow. The action runs without asking. You still see a record of what ran in the chat, every time.
Ask first. The operator stops, shows you a card with the exact action, and waits for your approval.
Never. The action is taken out of the operator's toolbox. It cannot use it at all, so no card ever asks about it.
A row about reading, such as Find items or See lists, has no control. It reads Always allow and stays there.
Your answers belong to your account, so a choice made in the browser holds in the Mac app and on your iPhone.
What asks by default
Most everyday work runs on its own: creating items, updating an item's title, text, values, status or due date, creating a list, renaming one or updating its properties, remembering something you tell the operator about yourself, clearing an update, running an automation.
These ask first unless you say otherwise:
Move items to another list, and delete items.
Delete a list, with its items. A deleted list is recoverable for about 30 days.
Import tasks from a photo.
Create an automation. From the moment it exists it acts on its own, so the card is where you read the schedule and the steps first.
Create an expert.
Post in a shared chat, under your name.
Wake an outside agent: a trigger that sends your items to an agent when something on a list changes.
Write repo files in a connected GitHub repository, as a pull request.
Unsubscribe from a sender, or archive a sender's mail, in your Gmail.
One act asks whatever you set: replacing the whole body of a task or note. The operator can rewrite a paragraph on its own, but swapping out an entire body always comes to you first.
The groups on the page
The rows sit in groups: Items, Lists, Search, Notifications, Memory, Automations and Experts, plus a group for each connected app that brings tools of its own (Repos once GitHub is connected, Email once Gmail is). The first group, AI, holds one row, Use the computer: the operator's browser, in beta. It runs without asking by default, hands the browser to you only for a payment, and can be set to ask first or switched off like any other row.
Permissions for connected apps
What the operator may do inside an app you connected is not on this page. It lives with the connection, under Settings → Connections, one screen into each app. There the actions are grouped five ways: reading (always allowed), creating, updating, deleting and sending. Creating and updating run on their own by default. Deleting asks first. Sending asks first, because it goes to other people under your name and there is no undo. GitHub is the one exception: creating and updating there ask first too, since an issue or a commit is public history. The rows cover the actions Roma offers for that app, and nothing outside them can happen at all. Connect an app to Roma shows the page.
What a card looks like
When an action asks first, the operator says in one line what is about to happen, then the card shows the exact action and the tasks, notes or items it touches, which you can open to check. The confirm button restates the action, such as Delete, and an X declines. If the conversation moves on without an answer, the card settles as declined and the action never runs. The approvals article has the details.
On the iPhone
Settings → Permissions shows the same groups and the same three answers. A connected app's permissions sit inside that app's screen under Settings → Connections, as on the Mac.
Questions people ask
Can I make the operator ask before every change?
Yes. Set the rows you care about to Ask first: Create items and Edit items in the Items group, Create list and Edit list in the Lists group, and so on. Reading rows stay at Always allow, so the operator can still answer questions about your lists without a card.
What does Never do that Ask first does not?
Ask first puts the action in front of you each time. Never removes it from the operator's toolbox altogether, so there is nothing to decline. Choose Never for an action you do not want the operator to raise at all, for example posting in shared chats, and Ask first for one you want to see and approve.
If I set Always allow, do I still see what the operator did?
Yes. Turning approval off removes the question, never the record. Every write the operator makes leaves a line in the chat, and every change lands in the Event Log under Settings, where a change that kept its earlier value can be reverted. See the Event Log.