Approvals

Approvals

Before a PRD can be locked, it must receive formal sign-off from all required approvers. The Approvals phase is where designated stakeholders review the unified specification and either approve it or request changes.

Why Formal Approvals Matter

Approvals create an explicit, documented record of who signed off on the specification and when. This prevents the common situation where a PRD is "agreed upon" in a meeting but no one is actually on record as having committed to it. In SpecGraph:

• Every approval is timestamped and attributed to the approver.
• Rejections come with mandatory comments explaining what needs to change.
• The approval status is visible to everyone on the project.
• A PRD cannot be locked until all required approvals are received.

Who Are Approvers?

Approvers are configured per organization and typically include:

• Department Leads — who verify that their department's requirements are adequately represented.
• Product Owners — who confirm the spec aligns with business priorities.
• Technical Leads — who validate that the technical requirements are realistic.
• Executive Stakeholders — who approve from a strategy or budget perspective.

Your organization's admin configures which roles are required approvers. Contact your admin if you need to adjust the approver list for a project.

The Approvals Page

Navigate to the Approvals page of your project to see the full approver list. For each approver you can see:

• Their name and department.
• Their approval status: Pending, Approved, or Rejected.
• If approved: the date and time of approval.
• If rejected: their comment explaining what needs to be addressed.

How Approvers Review the PRD

Approvers receive a notification when the project enters the Approving phase. They can access the PRD directly from the notification or by navigating to the project.

From the Approvals page, an approver:

1. Reads the full unified PRD on the PRD page.
2. Returns to the Approvals page and clicks Approve or Reject.
3. If rejecting, writes a comment explaining their concern.

Handling a Rejection

If an approver rejects the PRD, the project lead must address the concern. Options include:

• Edit the PRD — make targeted edits to the unified PRD to address the rejection comment, then re-request the approver's review.
• Discuss the concern — if the rejection is based on a misunderstanding, clarify via the PRD comment threads and ask the approver to reconsider.

There is no automated re-approval request — the project lead is responsible for communicating with the rejecting approver and asking them to re-review once the issue is addressed.

Progress Tracking

The Approvals page shows an overall progress indicator: how many approvals have been received versus how many are required. The Lock PRD button becomes active only when all required approvals are in the Approved state.

Locking the PRD

Once all required approvals are received, click Lock PRD. This action:

• Makes the PRD permanently immutable.
• Records the lock timestamp and the user who locked it.
• Advances the project to the Locked phase.
• Enables the next steps: AI agent generation and export.

Warning: Locking a PRD is irreversible. Once locked, no changes can be made to the specification. Make sure all necessary edits have been made and all approvers are satisfied before locking.

After Locking

With the PRD locked, you can proceed to generate AI coding agents and export the final specification. See Export for the final steps.