How to approve coding agent permissions without switching windows
Stop alt-tabbing to find out an agent has been waiting on you. Here are three ways to handle permission prompts — and when each one makes sense.
By the Pet Island team · Updated Oct 17, 2026 · 5 min readCoding agents pause and ask before risky steps. You can let them run more on their own, get a notification, or answer every request from one place at the top of your screen — Pet Island’s island — without leaving the window you are in.
Why agents keep asking
Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and the others stop before they run a command or change a file you have not allowed yet. That pause is a good thing: it is the moment you can catch a wrong command before it runs.
The problem is where the question appears. It sits in a terminal tab or an editor panel that is usually behind your browser, so the agent waits — sometimes for twenty minutes — until you happen to look.
Option 1: allow more in the agent itself
Every agent has a way to allow safe actions ahead of time: an allow list, an auto-approve mode or an auto-run setting. Use it for things you never want to be asked about, like running tests or reading files.
Keep risky actions — deleting files, pushing to git, changing a database — on ask. Allowing everything removes the prompts, but it also removes your last chance to say no.
Option 2: get a notification
Some agents can run a script when they need you, which you can point at a Windows notification. You hear about the request, but you still have to find the right window to answer it, and you do not see what the agent wants to change.
Option 3: answer from the island
Pet Island connects to your agents in one click. When one of them needs permission, the request drops out of the top edge of your screen with the command or the diff. Press Allow, Deny or Always allow — or use Ctrl Y and Ctrl N without touching the mouse.
Several agents asking at once line up in one queue instead of piling up, and Jump takes you to the exact window when you do want to look closer.
Side by side
| Allow list | Notification | Pet Island | |
|---|---|---|---|
| See what the agent wants to do | No | No | Yes |
| Answer without switching windows | — | No | Yes |
| Keep risky actions on ask | Partly | Yes | Yes |
| Several agents in one place | No | No | Yes |
FAQ
Is it safe to approve from the island?
Yes. You see the same command or diff the agent would show you, and nothing runs until you press Allow.
What if I am away from the computer?
The request waits on the island. If you set the island to block while it is closed, risky requests are refused instead of slipping through.
Which agents work?
Claude Code and Codex get full control. Cursor, Windsurf, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Grok CLI and Antigravity send their approvals. Cline, Kilo Code and OpenCode show their status.