If launch output needs approval, place the gate before any public action: deployment, announcement, or customer notification. Define who may approve, what they are approving, and which evidence they need—test results, known issues, rollback plan, and final copy. The approver should see the exact version that will ship, not an earlier draft.
Give the gate an explicit status: pending, approved, or rejected. A timeout or missing response means pause, not implied consent. If changes occur after approval, decide which changes require fresh sign-off. Keep the decision and timestamp with the launch record so the team can reconstruct what was authorized.
Akousa