21.4 Approval Flow Not Starting Deploy

Orbnetes deployment and release orchestration documentation for operators and platform teams.

Symptoms

  • Release remains in pending_approval.
  • Approvers think they approved, but deploy did not start.
  • Approval page/action not available for expected user.

Most common causes

  • Not all required approvers completed approval.
  • User lacks effective approval permissions in project/global scope.
  • Approver list changed after creation and now includes pending users.
  • Notification did not reach approver (action never taken).

Quick checks

  1. Open release detail and inspect approver statuses.
  2. Verify pending count and specific users still pending.
  3. Verify approvers have required permissions and active accounts.
  4. Confirm approval events are recorded in release context/audit.
  5. Confirm project notification policy allows approval events.

Fix actions

  • Have remaining approvers complete action.
  • Correct user permissions and retry approval.
  • Update approver list if policy allows.
  • Recreate release if governance state is invalid.