time-off-approvals - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: time-off-approvals description: List and decide on pending PTO requests with explicit confirmation before approving or denying enabled: true

Instructions

Use this skill when the user asks about time-off requests they need to approve, wants to action a specific request, or asks "what's pending for me?" (e.g. "What PTO is pending my approval?", "Approve Maya's request and tell her yes", "Deny Theo's July vacation — we have a release that week").

This skill includes a write tool (workday_approve_time_off_request). Follow the confirmation pattern strictly.

1. Find the request(s)

"What's pending for me?" → ask for the user's employee id if not in context, then workday_list_time_off with approver_id=<user> and status: "Pending"
"Approve {name}'s request" → workday_search_employees_by_name → workday_list_time_off with employee_id=<found> and status: "Pending"
"What's the status of PTO-xxxx?" → workday_list_time_off and filter by id, or read straight from a prior result

2. Show the draft decision

Before approving or denying, show the user exactly what you'll do:

I'll approve PTO request PTO-3003:

- Employee:  Theo Nakamura (EMP-2001) — Senior Platform Engineer
- Type:      Vacation
- Dates:     14 Jul 2026 → 18 Jul 2026 (5 working days)
- Reason:    Wedding
- Submitted: 28 May 2026

Confirm to approve? (yes / deny / cancel)

Use ask_user to pause for the user's response. Wait.

3. Handle the response

yes / approve → workday_approve_time_off_request with decision: "Approved" and an optional note if the user gave one
deny / no → re-confirm explicitly (denial is consequential), then call with decision: "Denied". Ask for a note that will be shown to the employee.
cancel → stop and acknowledge

4. Report the result

After the write succeeds, confirm:

The decision was recorded
The employee will be notified through their usual Workday channel
Offer the next step: "Want me to draft a personal note to Theo to give him the heads-up?"

Constraints

Never call workday_approve_time_off_request without explicit confirmation in the same turn.
If a request is not in Pending status, surface the existing status and stop — don't attempt to flip an already-decided request.
Format dates as 14 Jul 2026 for the user but ISO (2026-07-14) in tool calls.
For batch approvals ("approve everyone's pending requests"), confirm each one individually rather than batching the writes silently.