Proposals and cards

A proposal is a change Piste wants to make, stored with its evidence and shown as a card with buttons. Nothing changes until someone presses the card's button, and then exactly that change is written, once. An automation run leaves every change it wants to your store or ad accounts as a proposal, and conversations can raise them too.

Where do cards appear?Copy Anchor Link

Open ad changes, store edits and change follow-ups are also in Needs you wherever they were raised, so you can decide them without Slack.

A Slack message holds at most 10 cards. When a run has more, its post says "N more changes are waiting for a decision: a message holds only 10, so the next post carries them." A conversation's cards go as several messages of 10. A run that found nothing to report but has changes waiting still posts, with the line "has nothing new to report, and changes waiting for a decision."

Over iMessage, which has no buttons, a run's text ends with how many changes are waiting and a link to Needs you.

Who can press a card's buttons?Copy Anchor Link

Piste checks with Slack on every press that the person is a full, active member of the workspace Piste is installed in. The first time someone presses a card under a run's post, they join your Piste workspace as a light member. If a press is refused, nothing changes and Piste tells that person privately:

What kinds of proposal are there?Copy Anchor Link

Almost every card goes out of date 7 days after it's raised, and once applied offers Undo. The exceptions are in the last two paragraphs of this section.

In your Shopify storeCopy Anchor Link

The revert button on a change follow-up reads Revert to <old price>, Turn the discount off, or Revert for a change Piste made itself. There's none for a product launch, or once the price has changed again since. See Store edits and Change follow-ups for the detail of each.

In ad accounts and appsCopy Anchor Link

Out of date after 7 days, except: an order hold, after 24 hours; a change follow-up, which stays open until it's decided; a budget change, which never goes out of date, though nothing is written if the campaign's budget has moved since the plan read it (see Weekly plan); and a standing approval offer, which isn't offered again for 90 days after Keep asking me.

Undo once applied, except: a price probe offers End it now; an order hold, Release it; a Gmail draft, Delete the draft; a standing approval, Switch it off and then Switch it back on; and a change follow-up or a budget change has nothing after it's decided.

A Gmail draft is a supplier reorder email, written from a fixed template with your store's facts, created in your Gmail drafts and never sent. It's addressed only to the supplier address you gave Piste in a conversation and approved; without one, the card asks for it and has no button, and a card raised before you changed the address creates nothing. The web chat and iMessage can't raise one. Gmail drafts haven't yet been tested against a real mailbox. See Connected apps.

What happens when you press a button?Copy Anchor Link

Piste's own code handles the press, not the AI model. It applies the change at most once, however many times the button is pressed, and redraws the card from its record so it shows who decided and when, for example "Applied by Maya Chen · 6 Oct" on an ad change. Every press is recorded in the decision log.

• The change is checked first. Before writing, Piste reads the product, discount, order or campaign again. If it has changed since the proposal, nothing is written and the card says what it is now.
• No is remembered. Leave it on a store edit or ad change replies "Left as it is. Nothing was changed, and it won't be proposed again." It's fine on an order hold means Piste won't propose holding that order again.
• A second press says so. Someone who presses after a decision, in Slack or on the web, is told it was already decided and what its state is.
• Missing Shopify permission stops the write. Piste says which permission it needs and where to grant it, the card stays open, and pressing again after granting it applies the change.
• An unclear result is never sent twice. If Shopify or the ad platform doesn't answer, Piste reads the result back once. If it still can't tell, the card says the outcome is unknown, asks you to check, and the change is never sent again.

Results that come later, such as what a change did a week on, are posted as replies in the card's thread. A budget change, ad change or change follow-up card under a run's post that's still open after a day may get one reminder in its thread, never more; Quiet hours and digests says when. Store edit cards don't get reminders.

When does a proposal go out of date?Copy Anchor Link

Store edits, ad changes and Gmail drafts go out of date 7 days after they were proposed. An order hold goes out of date after 24 hours, because a hold only helps before the order is packed. An out-of-date proposal can't be applied: pressing its button changes nothing, and the card says it's out of date.

• An out-of-date store edit says when it was proposed, that it's more than 7 days old so nothing was changed, and that Piste proposes it again if it still holds.
• An out-of-date order hold says to look at the order in Shopify, where it can be held by hand.
• An out-of-date ad change shows a single Clear it button. The next Ad spend watch post checks it again.
• An undo never goes out of date, and nor does turning something back on that Piste paused because products sold out.
• A change follow-up stays open until someone keeps or reverts it, and a budget change until someone decides it.

How do I undo a change?Copy Anchor Link

Each change has one undo, and an undo has no undo of its own. A change that turned out to change nothing offers no Undo. If an undo fails, the button stays so you can try again. On a change Piste made from a store edit, Undo on the edit's card and Revert on its follow-up are the same undo: whichever is pressed first settles both. A budget change has no Undo.

What is "Show the working"?Copy Anchor Link

Show the working is the last button on ad change, budget change and change follow-up cards in Slack. It posts the evidence behind the card as one reply in its thread, laid out by Piste's code from the proposal's record, within about a minute. It changes nothing.

The reply is headed "The working" with the card's title, and has these sections where they apply: "What I looked at", "What I found", "The rule I applied", "What will change", "How it comes back", "What would make this wrong", "The query", and, once decided, "What was written". For an ad change, it's what the check saw when it proposed the change, since the same read a day later would give other numbers.

It posts once while the card is open, and once more after the decision. Asking Piste "why this one?" in the card's thread answers from the same record. Store edit, Gmail draft and standing approval cards don't have the button, and Needs you doesn't show it.

What does Needs you list?Copy Anchor Link

Needs you in the web app lists open proposals so you can decide without Slack, with the same buttons and the same rules as the Slack cards. A decision there updates the Slack card too.

Each card in Needs you says which automation raised it, or "In a conversation", and links to its Slack card with "Also in Slack" when it has one.

LimitsCopy Anchor Link

RelatedCopy Anchor Link

• Approvals: approvals in a conversation, and who can decide what.
• Store edits: every change Piste can make in Shopify.
• Ad changes: changes to Google Ads and Meta.
• Decision log: every decision and who took it.