Auto (preview) approval mode is highly ineffective

Google Antigravity
1

I’m trying Antigravity for the first time as it appears to be the only way to use Argon for software development via an Ultra subscription. (I’d prefer to use another harness, but that doesn’t seem to be an option.)

I tried to enable Auto Mode in Settings for the app, but there is no Auto mode entry there at all.

There is an Auto (preview) toggle in the actual conversation view, but it seems to barely work. I created a new session and added the prompt “Pull the latest code from the remote”, but auto approval failed - I got a permissions prompt saying “Allow pulling latest code from remote? the auto-run safety check did not reach a decision”. Followups kept prompting me for additional approvals on clearly innocuous work, like running ‘npm ci’ to install dependencies to complete a task I had specifically requested.

Is this expected behavior? Why are the Auto settings misaligned between app-level settings and conversation-level settings? And why does auto mode not seem to actually be able to automatically approve basic requests?

2

Hi @bandsaws,

Thank you for reporting this.

Here is how permissions, the terminal sandbox, and Auto mode work across Antigravity, along with how you can configure commands like git and npm to run without prompting:

1. Why Commands Like git pull and npm ci Prompt for Approval

  • On macOS and Linux, Antigravity runs terminal commands inside an isolated Terminal sandbox by default, which allows access to your project folders and temporary directories but blocks outbound network access.
  • When a command requires network connectivity (such as pulling from a remote Git repository or fetching packages with npm), it cannot run inside the default sandbox unless network access to that domain is allowed, so the agent requests to run the command outside the sandbox.
  • Auto mode approves file edits and safe commands without asking while still prompting before irreversible actions, and commands that would leave the terminal sandbox are first reviewed by a separate agent (Antigravity CLI v1.3.5 Release Notes). When that review does not auto-approve an unsandboxed command, Antigravity falls back to prompting you for confirmation.

2. Preset Picker vs. Application Settings

  • Antigravity v2.23.0 added the permissions preset picker to the conversation message box, while Settings > General > Permission Settings (and Settings > Projects) currently lists the Default, Request Review, and Turbo presets.
  • We have shared your feedback regarding the misalignment between the conversation-level Auto (preview) option and Settings > General > Permission Settings, as well as the auto-run safety check behavior on git pull and npm ci, with the engineering team.

3. How to Allow Trusted Commands Without Prompting

Your configured Allow, Deny, and Ask rules are layered on top of your permission preset and always take precedence (Agent permissions):

  1. Add command(...) rules to your Allow list (covers execution both inside and outside the sandbox):
    Under Settings > General > Permission Settings (or per project under Settings > Projects), you can add command prefixes or regular expressions to your Allow list:

    • command(git) — Allows standard git commands inside or outside the sandbox
    • command(npm ci) — Allows npm ci without prompting
    • command(regex:npm run (build|lint|test)) — Allows safe npm scripts using regex

  2. Allow outbound network domains inside the sandbox with read_url(...):
    Any domain granted under read_url in your Allow list is added directly to the terminal sandbox’s outbound network allowlist, permitting tools like npm or curl to connect to authorized hosts inside the sandbox (Terminal sandbox — Permissions integration):

    • read_url(github.com)
    • read_url(registry.npmjs.org)

4. Using Gemini 4 Argon in Other Environments

If you prefer working in your existing terminal or code editor with your Google AI Ultra subscription, Gemini 4 Argon is supported across the Antigravity app, Antigravity CLI, and Antigravity IDE extensions (Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, Zed, and Xcode) as listed on the Models page.