Decide what your Chief of Staff can do without asking
Authority lets you raise or lower how much your Chief of Staff can do on its own, one area of work at a time, with limits, an expiry date, and a pause switch.
A new hire does not get the keys to everything on day one. They earn scope as you learn to trust them. Your Chief of Staff works the same way, and the Authority tab is where you set that scope.
By default it is cautious. It prepares work and brings it to you. Authority is how you say "you can just do this part now" once you are comfortable, without handing over everything at once.
The four levels
Every area of work sits at one of four levels.
- Manual. It notices and explains, and asks before preparing or changing anything.
- Assisted. It prepares useful work for you to review. Anything consequential still needs your approval. This is the sensible default for most people.
- Semi-automatic. It runs only the exact actions you enabled, inside a grant that expires.
- Fully automatic. Reserved for low-risk areas with explicit boundaries.
Set it area by area
You do not set one level for everything. You set it per area, so you can let it run your research freely while keeping a tight hold on anything a client sees.
- Research and analysis. Read connected sources, summarize evidence, run calculations.
- Internal operations. Drafts, checklists, notes, and reversible internal setup.
- Sales and CRM. Prepare and update sales records, tasks, and next steps.
- Projects. Prepare plans and maintain internal project state.
- Marketing. Prepare campaigns and, only when qualified, publish within explicit rules.
- Customer communications. Prepare and, only when qualified, send routine customer messages.
- Finance and purchases. Analyze finances and prepare purchase or payment decisions.
- Access and integrations. Prepare connection changes. Security and access changes always come back to you.
The limits on a raised grant
When you move an area to Semi-automatic or Fully automatic, you are not writing a blank cheque. You also set:
- Exactly which actions are allowed. Nothing outside that list runs on its own.
- A daily cap on how many of those actions it may take.
- An expiry date. Grants default to 30 days, so authority you granted once does not quietly live forever.
You can pause a single grant, or hit Pause all lanes to put everything back into review at once. Pausing takes effect immediately.
What always comes back to you
Four things need your explicit confirmation at every level, including Fully automatic. These cannot be switched off.
- Irreversible deletion
- Security or access changes
- Legal or financial commitments
- Purchases outside the spending limit you set
Why some levels are greyed out
Semi-automatic and Fully automatic only become selectable for an area once that area has passed Noli's quality and safety qualification. Until then you can raise it to Assisted, and the higher levels stay unavailable. This is deliberate: we do not let you hand over unattended sending in an area we have not proven yet.
You will also be asked to acknowledge the risk on any elevated grant before it saves.
A sensible way to start
- Leave everything at Assisted for your first couple of weeks and work from the approvals inbox.
- Notice which drafts you approve without changing anything. That is where trust has already been earned.
- Raise just that area to Semi-automatic, enable only those actions, set a low daily cap, and let the 30-day expiry do its job.
- Review when it expires. Renew what worked.
Noli calls the whole set of choices your operating charter, and saves it as one thing. When you save, it is shared with your Chief of Staff immediately.
Related: Approve what goes out before it sends and Choose a model and customize instructions.