Review and approve templates before they're published
Comment on templates, mention teammates, and require an approval before a template can be published as a demo.
Overview
Review and approval lets your team give feedback on a template inside Walnut and, if you choose, stop a template from going out until someone with approval rights has signed off.
It has two layers:
- Comments and mentions are always on. Anyone who can open a template can comment on it and mention a teammate.
- Approval is off until an admin turns on Require approval before publishing for the account. Once it's on, every template has a review state, and a template must be approved before anyone can create or update a demo from it.
Until approval is turned on, publishing works exactly as it did before.
Turn on approval for your account
Only an Account owner or Company admin can change this setting.
- Go to Company Settings → Account settings.
- Find the Content approval section and turn on Require approval before publishing.
- Click Save.
Choose who can approve
Approvers are individual members you name. You don't pick them by role or by group.
- Go to Company Settings → Users.
- In the Can approve column, turn on Can approve content for each member who should be able to approve templates.
Things to know:
- By default, only the Account owner can approve. You can grant the permission to others, and you can turn it off for the Account owner too.
- Only Editors, Company admins, and Account owners can be approvers. Presenters and Viewers can't be granted the permission.
- An approver also needs edit access to the template. The permission lets them approve only the templates they can edit.
- One approval is enough. Approvers you add to a request are the people Walnut notifies. Anyone else with the permission can still approve.
- Authors can approve their own template if they have the permission. Their button reads Approve & share.
If the last member who can approve loses the permission, every template that's In review goes back to Draft. Walnut posts a comment on each one to explain why.
Review states
With approval on, every template shows one review state on its library card, in the editor header, and in the library filter.
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Draft | Not yet submitted for review. You can't create or update demos from it. |
| In review | Waiting for an approver. You can't create or update demos from it yet. |
| Approved | An approver has signed off and nothing has changed since. You can create and update demos as usual. |
| Needs re-approval | The template was approved, but someone has edited it since. You need a new approval before you can publish again. |
You don't have to change a template to Needs re-approval yourself. Any edit to an approved template sends it there automatically. Comments don't count as edits, so commenting never removes an approval.
Ask for a review
Open the template in the editor. The share button changes with the template's state:
| Button | When you see it |
|---|---|
| Ask for review | The template is a Draft. |
| Approve & share | The template is a Draft and you can approve it. This approves it and opens the share flow. |
| Ask another reviewer | The template is already In review. This doesn't change its state. |
| Resubmit | The template Needs re-approval because an edit invalidated the approval. |
| Create & Share Demo | The template is Approved. |
To ask for a review:
- Click Ask for review (or Resubmit).
- In the Request approval dialog, under Add approvers, choose who to ask. Everyone you add gets an in-app notification and an email.
- Add a message if you like, then click Send request.
If nobody else in the account can approve, the dialog says Nobody else can approve this demo yet. Ask an admin to grant approval rights.
Approve or send back
Approvers see two actions on a template that's in review: Approve and Send back to draft.
- Approve moves the template to Approved.
- Send back to draft moves it back to Draft and asks for a reason ("What needs to change before this can be approved?"). The reason is posted as a comment on the whole template and mentions the creator, so they find it in the comments panel.
After a send-back, the creator's share button reads Requested changes. Once they've edited the template, it switches back to Ask for review. Submitting again marks the reason as addressed.
To approve several templates at once, select them in the library and click Approve. Bulk approval doesn't send notifications.
What the approval blocks
While a template isn't approved, Walnut blocks anything that would publish it:
- Creating a new demo from the template.
- Updating existing demos to the template's latest version, including Update demos.
- Creating demos through AI Mode or the API.
When you try to share, a You can't share this yet panel names the approvers for your workspace. From there you can Submit for review or Request approval. Nothing you've built is lost, because only sharing is blocked. You can still use Copy internal link to show the template to a teammate.
Comments and mentions
Comments work whether or not approval is turned on.
- Comment on an element. Right-click an element and choose Comment on element, or use Add comment in the comments panel. The comment is anchored to that element and stays attached even if the element changes.
- If the element is removed, you can choose Keep on screen to attach the thread to the screen instead.
- Whole-template comments come from review actions, such as a send-back reason.
- Mention a teammate by typing
@in the comment box. You can mention any Editor, Company admin, or Account owner. If the person isn't a collaborator on the template, Walnut warns you and offers Add them. They won't be notified until they have access. - Resolve a thread to close it, or Reopen it later. Resolving needs edit access.
- You can edit or delete only your own comments.
Anyone who can view a template can read and add comments. Comments stay inside Walnut and never appear in a published demo.
Notifications
- Mentions, replies, and review actions appear in your in-app Inbox.
- A daily digest email collects your unread notifications. It arrives at 9:00 in your timezone, at most once a day.
- A named approval request also sends the approver an email straight away.
Version history
Review actions are recorded on the version where they happened. In Version history, a version can show an Approved, Sent back, or Pending badge. Open the version to see who approved it, who sent it back, or who asked for the review, together with the reason and the approvers. This shows you which version was approved and what has changed since.
FAQ
Does approval apply to demos as well as templates? Approval is set on templates. A demo is blocked only because its template isn't approved.
Do comments have to be resolved before a template can be approved? No. Approvers can approve with open threads.
Can I turn approval off for one template? No. The setting covers the whole account. An admin can turn it off for everyone in Company Settings → Account settings → Content approval.
Who can approve if we never set up approvers? Only the Account owner, who has the permission by default.