How to Approve a Production Deploy in CircleCI

A type: approval job pauses the workflow until someone approves it in the CircleCI UI.

Insert an approval job between build and deploy and make the deploy require it. The workflow holds until a person clicks approve.

Hold for approval

The deploy job depends on the approval job, so nothing ships until approved.

version: 2.1
workflows:
  ship:
    jobs:
      - build
      - hold:
          type: approval
          requires:
            - build
      - deploy:
          requires:
            - hold
          filters:
            branches:
              only: main

Notes

• The approval job has no steps; it exists purely as a gate.
• Restrict who can approve by limiting workflow access at the org level.
• Combine with branch filters so the gate only appears on main.

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