From 6d495d9e7cf20f5e855f9646d58c31c7386e6473 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: LifeJiggy <141562589+LifeJiggy@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Mon, 18 May 2026 19:37:11 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] fix(approval): surface pending-approval state with explicit
 marker visible to LLM
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When a tool call requires user approval in the non-blocking gateway path,
the LLM previously received a result that was indistinguishable from a
failed tool call (exit_code=-1, error=message). The LLM could not tell
whether the tool was pending approval, had returned empty results, or had
failed silently — causing it to burn context on wrong hypotheses.

Fix changes the result format to include:
- status: pending_approval (clear state name)
- approval_pending: True (explicit boolean for LLMs to detect)
- error: cleared to empty string (removes misleading error signal)

This lets the LLM reason about approval latency vs actual errors,
short-circuiting the previous silent failure mode.

Fixes #14806
---
 tools/approval.py      | 3 ++-
 tools/terminal_tool.py | 7 ++++---
 2 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/tools/approval.py b/tools/approval.py
index cf5df644ff8..bfc70cd0fb0 100644
--- a/tools/approval.py
+++ b/tools/approval.py
@@ -1332,7 +1332,8 @@ def check_all_command_guards(command: str, env_type: str,
         return {
             "approved": False,
             "pattern_key": primary_key,
-            "status": "approval_required",
+            "status": "pending_approval",
+            "approval_pending": True,
             "command": command,
             "description": combined_desc,
             "message": (
diff --git a/tools/terminal_tool.py b/tools/terminal_tool.py
index 31a1c6fa078..2c522fe7571 100644
--- a/tools/terminal_tool.py
+++ b/tools/terminal_tool.py
@@ -1863,12 +1863,13 @@ def terminal_tool(
             approval = _check_all_guards(command, env_type)
             if not approval["approved"]:
                 # Check if this is an approval_required (gateway ask mode)
-                if approval.get("status") == "approval_required":
+                if approval.get("status") == "pending_approval":
                     return json.dumps({
                         "output": "",
                         "exit_code": -1,
-                        "error": approval.get("message", "Waiting for user approval"),
-                        "status": "approval_required",
+                        "error": "",
+                        "status": "pending_approval",
+                        "approval_pending": True,
                         "command": approval.get("command", command),
                         "description": approval.get("description", "command flagged"),
                         "pattern_key": approval.get("pattern_key", ""),