DeployGate Approvals

Deploy approvals enforced in the pipeline, not in Jira

Problem

Too many teams still approve deployments inside Jira or chat, disconnected from the actual pipeline, so someone can just run a deploy and bypass the process. Only after an incident do they realize approvals and releases were never strongly linked, and audits can't tell who approved what.

Solution

A lightweight approval gateway that plugs into CI as a step: before deploy it calls a signed approval API and blocks until approved. Approvals happen via Slack, email, or a one-time web link, and every approve/deny/deploy event lands in a tamper-evident audit log. Integrates with GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, and common PaaS targets.

Users

Engineering teams of 5-50, especially SMBs that need compliance without buying Jira

MVP

CLI and GitHub/GitLab plugin as a pipeline step; approve/deny via Slack or email one-click links; immutable audit log with export; per-environment approver lists and multi-signer rules; basic adapters for Vercel, Fly, and k8s deploys

Revenue

Team subscription at $20-100/month; longer audit retention and SSO as higher tiers

Why now

Deploy frequency is rising with AI-assisted coding while approvals still live in ticketing systems; moving approval into the pipeline is an obvious gap and needs no heavy infrastructure