Artifact approval

Require admin approval before non-admin users can create, update, or delete an AI artifact from the registry catalog.

About artifact approval mode

Registry admin users can enable artifact approval mode in Solo Enterprise for agentregistry. With approval mode, non-admin users cannot create, update, or delete an AI artifact in the registry catalog without the approval from a registry admin user. All AI artifact change requests are staged. An admin must review staged changes, and either approve or reject a request before the update of the AI artifact is visible to all registry users.

Admin users can always perform create, update, or delete operations on an AI artifact without obtaining an approval first.

The following diagram shows the lifecycle of an AI artifact change request and the operations that an admin or non-admin user can perform when artifact approval mode is enabled.

    sequenceDiagram
    participant NA as Non-admin user
    participant AR as agentregistry
    participant A as Admin

    Note over NA,A: Stage an AI artifact
    NA->>AR: Create, update, or delete an AI artifact
    AR-->>NA: Artifact update pending approval

    Note over NA,A: Manage approval queue
    A->>AR: View approval queue (UI)
    AR-->>A: All pending requests

    alt Admin approves request
        A->>AR: Approve request (UI)
        AR-->>A: approved
        AR->>AR: Update AI artifact in registry catalog
    else Non-admin user withdraws request
        NA->>AR: Withdraw request (UI)
        AR->>AR: Remove request from queue
        AR-->>NA: request removed
    else Admin withdraws request
        A->>AR: Withdraw request (UI)
        AR->>AR: Remove request from queue
        AR-->>A: request removed 
    end

    Note over NA,A: Delete approved AI artifacts
    A->>AR: View approved artifacts
    AR-->>A: All artifacts
    A->>AR: Delete artifact
    AR->>AR: Delete artifact from registry
    AR-->>A: deleted

    Note over NA,A: Deploy a pending artifact
    NA->>AR: Create deployment for pending artifact
    AR-->>NA: Deployment pending
    alt Admin approves artifact
        A->>AR: Approve artifact (UI)
        AR->>AR: Apply artifact to registry catalog
        AR->>AR: Re-reconcile Deployment
        AR-->>NA: Deployment applied
    else Admin withdraws artifact
        A->>AR: Withdraw artifact (UI)
        AR-->>NA: Deployment remains pending
    end
  

Before you begin

1. Follow one of the Get started guides to install Solo Enterprise for agentregistry and connect a runtime.

2. Follow the restrict registry access guide to set up a non-admin user (dev-user) and apply an AccessPolicy that grants the user read, publish, and deploy permissions to the registry. For example, you might apply an AccessPolicy that looks similar to the following.

   cat <<EOF | arctl apply -f-
   apiVersion: ar.dev/v1alpha1
   kind: AccessPolicy
   metadata:
     name: developers
   spec:
     principals:
       - kind: Role
         name: developers
     rules:
       - actions:
           - "registry:read"
           - "registry:publish"
           - "registry:edit"
           - "registry:deploy"
         resources:
           - kind: agent
             name: "*"
           - kind: server
             name: "*"
           - kind: runtime
             name: "*"
   EOF

Step 1: Enable approval mode

1. Optional: Save the current Helm values to a file for reference.

   helm get values agentregistry --namespace agentregistry-system -o yaml > agentregistry-values.yaml

2. Upgrade the Helm release to enable the approval mode. The --reuse-values flag re-applies all values from the previous release automatically.

   helm upgrade -i agentregistry \
     oci://us-docker.pkg.dev/solo-public/agentregistry-enterprise/helm/agentregistry-enterprise \
     --namespace agentregistry-system \
     --reuse-values \
     --set config.requireCreateApproval="true"

3. Verify that all Solo Enterprise for agentregistry control plane pods are up and running.

   kubectl get pods -n agentregistry-system

4. Open the UI and go to the Catalog page. Verify that you can see the Administrative Requests card.

   

   

Step 2: Trigger an approval flow (non-admin)

1. Log out of the current CLI session.

   arctl user logout

2. Log in to Solo Enterprise for agentregistry with the dev-user username and password. Complete the device authorization grant when prompted.

   arctl user login

3. Publish an agent to the registry catalog. Verify that the agent is staged and not applied directly.

   arctl apply -f- <<EOF          
   apiVersion: ar.dev/v1alpha1
   kind: Agent
   metadata:
    name: approval-agent
   spec:
     source:
       image: localhost:5001/myagent:latest
       repository:
         url: https://github.com/solo-io/doc-examples
         subfolder: agentregistry/myagent
     modelProvider: bedrock
     modelName: us.anthropic.claude-sonnet-4-6
     description: myagent agent
     mcpServers:
       - kind: MCPServer
         name: mymcp
   EOF

   Example output:

   ✓ Agent/approval-agent (latest) staged
   

4. List the agents in your environment and verify that you do not see the approval-agent yet.

   arctl get agent 

5. Create a deployment for the staged agent.

   arctl apply -f- <<EOF
   apiVersion: ar.dev/v1alpha1
   kind: Deployment
   metadata:
     name: approval-agent
   spec:
     targetRef:
       kind: Agent
       name: approval-agent
     runtimeRef:
       kind: Runtime
       name: agentcore
     deploymentRefs:
       - name: mymcp
     runtimeConfig:
       region: $AWS_REGION
       workdir: agentregistry/myagent
       networkMode: vpc
       subnetIds:
   ${SUBNET_IDS_YAML}
       securityGroupIds:
         - ${SG_ID}
   EOF

   Example output:

   ✓ Deployment/approval-agent created
   

6. Verify that the deployment remains in a pending state, because the approval-agent artifact is not approved yet.

   arctl get deployment approval-agent

   Example output:

   NAME                     TARGET           VERSION   TYPE    RUNTIME      STATUS
   default/approval-agent   approval-agent             agent   agentcore    pending
   

Step 3: Manage the approval queue (admin)

As an admin, you can review all staged requests and take one of the following actions:

• Approve: Applies the staged AI artifact and adds it to the registry catalog. The artifact immediately becomes visible to users who have read access. Deployments that referenced the staged artifact are kicked off.
• Withdraw: Removes a staged request without applying it. The artifact is not published to the registry catalog. Deployments that reference the staged artifact remain in a pending state.
• Delete: Removes an artifact that was previously added to the registry catalog.

1. Log in to the Solo Enterprise for agentregistry UI as an admin user with the admin-user username and password, and go to the Catalog.

2. Open the Administrative requests view and verify that you see the approval-agent agent. Select the agent and click Approve. Then, click OK to confirm the approval.

   

   

   Similarly, if you decide to reject the request, click Withdraw and confirm the rejection in the pop-up window. Note that the agent is not added to the registry catalog and that deployments that reference a staged agent remain in a pending state.

3. Verify that the agent is added to the catalog.

   

   

4. Go to the Instances view and verify that the deployment is started.