What agents can and cannot do
The limits that keep agents and the assistant safe: your permissions, scopes, read-only, approval and the activity log.
On this page
AI agents, whether the assistant in the back office or an app you connected, work inside strict limits. They help you look things up and prepare changes. They cannot do anything you could not do yourself, and they cannot move money.
The rules that always apply
- An agent never has more rights than the person it acts for. Its permissions are your role's permissions, cut down to the scopes you granted. If your role cannot change prices, neither can the agent.
- Agents can never move money. There are no refunds, voids, payouts or payment settings for agents. They cannot take payments or change how payments are set up.
- Agents cannot delete things, change roles and permissions, run discounts or open cash drawers. Money, cash, gift cards, roles and business settings are in no scope.
- Guest and staff privacy is protected. Guest email, phone and birthday are masked in what the agent reads, and staff contact details are left out.
- Content from guests is treated as data. A note in an order that says "ignore your instructions" does not instruct the agent.
What agents can change
| Change | Needs approval? |
|---|---|
| Mark products available or sold out, create categories and products, update products without a price, create or change reservations, plan shifts (with the right scope) | No, it is applied at once because you granted that scope |
| Change a price, change prices in bulk, import a menu, invite someone to the back office | Yes, you approve it in Verimly first |
The panel assistant is stricter: every change it prepares waits for your Approve in the chat. See ai-assistant.
How approval works
When a change needs approval, the agent receives a link and cannot proceed. You open it (Approve a change), see What changes with the old (Now) and new (After) values and the exact details, and choose Approve and apply or Reject. Nothing changes until you approve. If you do nothing, it expires: after 30 minutes for most changes, 60 for bulk price changes and 120 for menu imports. An expired change says Expired and the agent must prepare it again. If you reject, the agent is told so.
Your controls
On Settings › AI & agents, owners can set:
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| Allow agents | Off: every connection and key stops working |
| Read-only for everyone | Agents can look but never change anything, whatever was granted |
| Verified apps only | Only apps Verimly knows (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code, Codex) can connect |
Each person can also:
- Keep a connection Read-only, which is the default.
- Limit it to certain Locations.
- Disconnect an app or Revoke a key at any time, with immediate effect.
Audit
Every agent action is recorded:
- Settings › AI & agents › Activity lists each action with time, the app or key it came through, the person it acted for, its result (Done, Failed, Not allowed, Waiting for approval) and how long it took. You can filter by result, action, source and date. Open change shows a proposal; Activity log opens the general log.
- Changes made through an agent are marked in the audit log as made by the assistant or an agent, with the app or key.
Common questions
Can an agent refund an order if I ask?
No. It can explain how and take you to the screen; you do it yourself.
An agent changed something I did not expect
Open Activity to see what it did and through which connection. Disconnect the app or revoke the key, then fix the change by hand. See agent-keys.
What do errors like AGENT_READ_ONLY mean?
The connection is read-only (AGENT_READ_ONLY), the app is not allowed (AGENT_CLIENT_NOT_TRUSTED), the key was revoked (AGENT_KEY_REVOKED), agent access is off (MCP_DISABLED) or the approval expired (AGENT_PROPOSAL_EXPIRED).
If something goes wrong
Switch off Allow agents to stop everything at once, then review Activity. For help use contact-support.