> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.assetinfinity.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Permits

> Permits to work — the only record in this product with a clock running against it, and the custody chain that issues and closes one.

A permit to work records what is isolated, what was tested, and who may work — and covers a job or a
shutdown rather than existing on its own. A job that needs one will not start until it has been
issued and accepted.

## The register

Leads with **what is live right now and how long it has left**, because a permit is the one record
here with a clock genuinely running against it — sorted by what runs out soonest, with counts for
what is **live**, **running out** (inside two hours — roughly a shift's tail, and still time to do
something about it) and **expired**.

| Column | Meaning |
| - | - |
| **Status** | Draft, issued, active, suspended, closed or cancelled |
| **In force** | When it starts, and a countdown to when it runs out |
| **Covers** | The work order or shutdown it permits |
| **Isolations** | How many are locked off, out of how many the permit lists |
| **Crew** | How many people are named on it |

**Active** and **issued** are deliberately different colours: a permit nobody has accepted yet is a
signed piece of paper on a desk, not cover for anyone working. An **active** permit that has run past
its own end time is shown as **expired** rather than active — the status word alone never overrides
the clock.

## Raising one

A permit covers a job or a shutdown — never neither — plus its kind (hot work, confined space,
working at height, electrical, lock-out/tag-out, excavation, lifting, chemical, radiation, or general
work, as shipped), the window it runs for, where and what it is against, the method and limits, and
the hazards an assessment found. The questions themselves, and their order, are arranged in [Form
Studio](/config/form-studio) — this page supplies the pickers and the logic, the layout is yours.

<Tip>
  Raised from a permit register directly, you choose the covering job or shutdown yourself. Raised
  from a work order's own screen, that job is already decided and is not asked again.
</Tip>

## The custody chain

A permit is not edited into different states from a form — each step is its own action, because the
whole point of a permit is that two people, at two moments, each signed for something real:

| Action | Does |
| - | - |
| **Issue it** | Hands a draft permit over, once its isolations and precautions are in place |
| **Accept it** | The crew's acknowledgement that they have been issued it |
| **Stand it down** | Suspends work under it without ending it — isolations stay on |
| **Resume it** | Lifts a suspension |
| **Hand it back** | Closes it, recording the state the area was left in |
| **Call it off** | Cancels a permit that never ran |

Before a draft can be issued, the screen says plainly what is still missing — nobody on the crew,
isolations not yet on, or precautions not yet confirmed — rather than letting the attempt fail
silently against a refusal. Editing is only offered on a draft: once somebody has signed for a
permit, it is a record of what they signed for, not a form to correct.

### Isolations, precautions and crew

Three tabs on the permit itself:

* **Isolations** — what is locked off, how (lock, tag, blank, spade, valve, earthed, fuse removed,
  disconnected, or another method), and the lock or tag reference that lets someone match the tag on
  the steelwork to the line on the permit. Each is marked on when applied and off when removed.
* **Precautions** — conditions of issue, written so each one is either true or it is not — "gas
  tested below 10% LEL" rather than "check the atmosphere" — confirmed with a reading where one
  applies. A required precaution left unconfirmed holds up issue.
* **Crew** — who is covered by the permit.

<Warning>
  Handing a permit back with isolations still on is flagged before you can complete it — recording
  each one as removed comes first.
</Warning>

## Printing it

**Document** on a permit produces the printable permit itself from your organisation's own template —
see [producing a document](/documents/documents#producing-a-document). This is usually the reason
somebody opens a permit at all: to hand a technician the paper to carry to the gate.

<Card title="Gatehouse" icon="shield-check" href="/property/gatehouse">
  Where a device or visitor is checked against what has been declared and authorised.
</Card>