Policies & Guardrails

Guardrails constrain what agents can do during a run — security boundaries, cost limits, and approval requirements without modifying agent code.

Policy file format


version: "1"
name: production-guardrails
 
rules:
  - id: block-destructive-aws
    match: { tool: "aws.*.delete*" }
    action: require-approval
    roles: [admin, sre-lead]
 
  - id: cost-ceiling
    match: { cost_usd_gte: 50 }
    action: abort
    message: "Run exceeded $50 cost ceiling"
 
  - id: require-tests
    match: { tool: "github.pulls.merge" }
    condition: "steps.ci.output.tests_passed != true"
    action: block

Rule evaluation

Rules are evaluated synchronously before each tool call. Most restrictive matching rule wins:

block — action denied, run continues
require-approval — run pauses at an approval gate
abort — entire run terminated
warn — action proceeds, warning logged

Applying policies


cendriix policy validate guardrails.yaml
cendriix policy apply guardrails.yaml
cendriix policy diff guardrails.yaml

Composition

Workspace-level — applies to all runs
Workflow-level — additional rules for specific workflows

The most restrictive rule wins — workflows cannot relax workspace guardrails.