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When a policy is triggered and the action defined is RequestApproval, an Approval object is created containing:
  • details about the activity that triggered this approval flow
  • details on the different policy evaluations that happened for that activity and their result
  • details about the decisions given by each approvers
When a new Approval object is created and an approval process is required, a webhook event is emitted (event kind “policy.approval.pending”). You can subscribe to it to react to this event, eg. send notifications to the users that need to give their approval. The Approval object can be queried using the approvalId returned from the endpoint that triggered the approval process, using the Get Approval / List Approvals endpoints. Users can then call the Create Approval Decision endpoint to either approve / reject this activity. Of course this can also be done via the Dfns dashboard. A user can only give his approval / rejection if he is defined inside one of the approval groups defined on the policies that triggered. A given user can only approve or reject once. If multiple approval groups exist, a decision from a single user will count as a decision for any of the groups this user belongs to. A rejection from any user of any groups immediately rejects an activity. The initiator is not allowed to approve their activity, but can deny it if they need to cancel it. Here’s an Approval object example 
{
  "id":"ap-...",
  "initiatorId":"us-...",
  "status":"Pending",
  "expirationDate":"2023-12-22T21:16:16.659Z",
  "dateCreated":"2023-12-22T20:56:16.662Z",
  "dateUpdated":"2023-12-22T20:56:16.662Z",
  "activity":{
    "kind": "Wallets:Sign",
    "transferRequest": { // the transfer request object from transfer endpoint
      "id": "xfr-...",
      ...
    },
  },
  "evaluatedPolicies":[
    {
      "policyId":"plc-...",
      "triggerStatus":"Triggered",
      "reason":"Number of transactions (2) is above limit (2)."
    },
    {
      "policyId":"plc-...",
      "triggerStatus":"Triggered",
      "reason":"Cumulative transfer amount (USD 20) is above limit (USD 2)."
    }
  ],
  "decisions":[
    {
      "userId":"us-...",
      "dateActioned":"2023-12-22T20:56:16.662Z",
      "value":"Approved"
    }
  ],
}

​
Policy Approval object

​
id
string
required
​
initiatorId
string
required
​
activity
Wallets:Sign · object
required
A "`Wallets:Sign`" activity represents any activity which involves signing with a wallet. Currently, in our API, these can be:
​
status
enum<string>
required
Available options:
Pending,
Approved,
Denied,
Expired
​
dateUpdated
string
required
​
policyEvaluations
object[]
required
​
decisions
object[]
required
​
expirationDate
string
​
dateCreated
string
​
dateResolved
string
Last modified on March 2, 2026