Glossary
Approval fatigue
When reviewers see so many approval requests that they stop reading them and approve by reflex, defeating the purpose of review.
Checks run on our GPUs in Switzerland. Request payloads are not stored.Security
What Approval fatigue means
Approval fatigue is the agent-era version of alert fatigue. When an agent asks for permission on every file read and every shell command, people quickly learn that almost every request is fine and start approving without reading. The one request that mattered then gets approved like the rest.
The fix is not fewer safeguards but better targeting. Approval prompts should be rare enough that each one gets attention, and they should carry enough context (what the action does, why it was flagged) for a quick, informed decision.
Ways to reduce it: allow read-only and easily reversible actions automatically, ask only for high blast radius or uncertain calls, batch related approvals, and show the reason for each prompt. MCP Guard’s ask verdict and reasons are designed for this triage, but where you set the threshold is a policy choice that should reflect your tolerance for interruptions versus risk.
Related terms
How Approval fatigue connects to the rest of the vocabulary.