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Use cases

Every case reads the same way: the action an agent tried, the rule you wrote, and the decision it met before anything ran. The first six are the rows on the home page. The rest are the rules a production policy carries, one case each.

At work

  • Agents you buy, through the gateway

    A support agent on WhatsApp

    What it tried
    stripe.create_refund, cus_9Kx, amount 400000
    Your rule
    Refunds above 10,000 wait for a person.
    What happened
    Waiting The refund waits for the finance approver, one of two. It expires in 52 minutes if nobody answers. Nothing reached Stripe.

  • Agents you buy, through the gateway

    Claude Code, in a developer session

    What it tried
    github.merge_pull_request, payments-service, main
    Your rule
    Merges to main wait for a person.
    What happened
    Waiting The merge waits for the release approver. The agent is not told where the line is, and it cannot argue its way past it.

  • Agents you buy, through the gateway

    A Cursor agent, in an editor

    What it tried
    aws.iam.attach_role_policy, role/deploy, AdministratorAccess
    Your rule
    Permission changes wait.
    What happened
    Waiting The policy change waits for the platform approver, two of three. Until they say yes, the role stays as it was.

  • Agents you build, through the adapter

    A sales workflow on the OpenAI Agents SDK

    What it tried
    salesforce.delete_records, 340 records
    Your rule
    Bulk deletes above 100 wait.
    What happened
    Waiting The delete waits for the CRM owner. Ten records would have gone through; 340 stops.

  • Agents you build, through the decorator

    An ops bot in Slack

    What it tried
    k8s.rollout, checkout-api, production, 12 pods
    Your rule
    Production actions wait.
    What happened
    Waiting The rollout waits for the release approver. The same rollout to staging went through two minutes earlier, allowed by the same rule.

  • Agents you buy, through the gateway

    A ChatGPT connector on the support inbox

    What it tried
    gmail.send, 300 recipients
    Your rule
    Sends above 50 recipients wait.
    What happened
    Waiting The send waits for the comms approver. A reply to one customer would not have.

  • Agents you build, through the adapter

    A CRM agent

    What it tried
    salesforce.export_all
    Your rule
    No rule mentions it.
    What happened
    Blocked Blocked. Silence is never permission: an action with no rule does not run.

Production and infrastructure

The rules from a production policy: staging goes through, production waits, the destructive ones never run.

  • Agents you buy, through the gateway

    A Teams app, deploying

    What it tried
    k8s.rollout, checkout-api, staging, 12 pods
    Your rule
    Rollouts to staging go through.
    What happened
    Allowed Runs at once and is recorded. The same agent, the same tool, the same image: only the target decides.

  • Agents you build, through the decorator

    An ops bot in Slack, four regions

    What it tried
    k8s.rollout, checkout-api, production, regions 4
    Your rule
    Production rollouts to more than three regions wait for two of two.
    What happened
    Waiting Waits for both release approvers. One yes is not enough for a rollout that touches every region at once.

  • Agents you buy, through the gateway

    A Codex agent, cleaning up

    What it tried
    k8s.delete_namespace, production
    Your rule
    Deleting a production namespace is blocked.
    What happened
    Blocked Never runs, and no approver can be asked. Some rules have no line above which a person may say yes.

  • Agents you build, through the decorator

    A release agent, fourth time today

    What it tried
    k8s.rollout, checkout-api, production
    Your rule
    Three production actions per agent per day.
    What happened
    Blocked The fourth stops. The budget counts what reached a decision today, retries included, and resets tomorrow.

  • Agents you build, through the decorator

    A release agent, after a lost reply

    What it tried
    k8s.rollout, checkout-api, production, attempt 2
    Your rule
    An outcome nobody saw is ambiguous. No retry until a person resolves it.
    What happened
    Ambiguous The first attempt may have run. The second is refused until someone looks at the cluster and says which. Nothing runs twice on a guess.

  • Agents you build, through the decorator

    The on-call lead, at three in the morning

    What it tried
    k8s.rollout, checkout-api, production, rollback to v2.14.0
    Your rule
    The break-glass role may act alone in production, with a review after.
    What happened
    Allowed Runs now, marked break-glass, and lands in the incident queue for the two-person review in the morning.

Access and privilege

Anything that changes who can do what waits for the security approver, and the agent is never told the threshold.

  • Agents you build, through the adapter

    A LangGraph agent, rotating credentials

    What it tried
    iam.create_access_key, role/admin
    Your rule
    Privilege changes wait for the security approver, two of two.
    What happened
    Waiting Waits for both. The old key keeps working until they answer, and the request expires if they do not.

  • Agents you buy, through the gateway

    A Cursor agent, tidying a user

    What it tried
    okta.deactivate_user, j.doe
    Your rule
    Changes to a person's account wait.
    What happened
    Waiting Waits for the platform approver. The agent sees "waiting", not the rule that put it there.

  • Agents you buy, through the gateway

    A CRM agent, after it went quiet

    What it tried
    salesforce.update_record, any
    Your rule
    Frozen by the on-call lead at 10:14.
    What happened
    Blocked Every action from this agent is refused while it is frozen, each one a receipt. Unfreezing is a recorded policy action, not a flag.

Data and records

Counts are the rule. A handful goes through, a bulk change waits, an export with no rule does not run.

  • Agents you build, through the adapter

    A sales workflow on the OpenAI Agents SDK, forty records

    What it tried
    salesforce.delete_records, 40 records
    Your rule
    Bulk deletes above 100 wait.
    What happened
    Allowed Forty is under the line, so it runs. The same rule that stopped 340 lets 40 through.

  • Agents you build, through the adapter

    A CrewAI agent, migrating

    What it tried
    postgres.drop_table, orders_archive
    Your rule
    Schema changes in production wait for the data owner.
    What happened
    Waiting Waits for the data owner, one of four. The migration that only adds a column would have gone through.

  • Agents you build, through the decorator

    A research agent in your own Python, sending rows out

    What it tried
    http.post, api.vendor.example, 12,000 customer rows
    Your rule
    Customer data leaving your systems waits.
    What happened
    Waiting Waits for the data owner. The agent had every permission it needed; the rule is about where the rows go, not whether it may call the API.

  • Agents you buy, through the gateway

    A WhatsApp support bot, all day

    What it tried
    zendesk.update_ticket, status solved
    Your rule
    Ticket updates go through.
    What happened
    Allowed Three thousand a day, each recorded, none waiting. Control is not a queue; most of what an agent does is allowed and simply written down.

Messages and customers

One reply is a reply. Three hundred is a campaign, and a campaign waits.

  • Agents you buy, through the gateway

    A ChatGPT connector, answering one customer

    What it tried
    gmail.send, 1 recipient
    Your rule
    Sends above 50 recipients wait.
    What happened
    Allowed One recipient goes out at once. The rule that holds the campaign never slows the reply.

  • Agents you buy, through the gateway

    A Slack app, posting to everyone

    What it tried
    slack.post_message, #announcements, 4,000 members
    Your rule
    Posts to channels above 500 members wait.
    What happened
    Waiting Waits for the comms approver with the message on the card. They read what will be sent, not a summary of it.

  • Agents you buy, through the gateway

    A support agent, changing a plan

    What it tried
    stripe.subscription.update, cus_2Zq, plan downgrade
    Your rule
    Subscription changes go through; cancellations wait.
    What happened
    Allowed A downgrade runs. A cancellation on the same customer would have waited, under the same rule. Money is its own product: ctrl payments.

When the answer is no

The cases that only a boundary catches: the approval that no longer matches, the yes from the wrong person, the window that closed.

  • Agents you buy, through the gateway

    A support agent, second attempt

    What it tried
    stripe.create_refund, cus_9Kx, amount 400000, under an approval for 200000
    Your rule
    An approval is for one exact action. Different arguments need a new yes.
    What happened
    Blocked Blocked for approval mismatch. The first refund, for 200000, ran with that approval. This one does not, even though the same person approved.

  • Agents you build, through the decorator

    The agent's owner, approving their own agent

    What it tried
    approve, k8s.rollout, checkout-api, production
    Your rule
    The requester is never the approver.
    What happened
    Blocked The yes is refused and recorded. The rollout keeps waiting for another release approver.

  • Agents you buy, through the gateway

    A release agent, an hour later

    What it tried
    k8s.rollout, checkout-api, production, approval apr_3f6
    Your rule
    An approval expires in 55 minutes.
    What happened
    Blocked The window closed at 55 minutes. The agent asks again and a person answers again; an old yes never runs a new action.

  • Agents you build, through the decorator

    A release agent, after the cluster moved

    What it tried
    k8s.rollout, checkout-api, production, replicas now 14
    Your rule
    An approval binds to the state it was given in.
    What happened
    Blocked The deployment changed between the yes and the run, so the approval is void. Refused, and the approver is told why.

At home

One person and the agents they run, with one approver: you.

  • Personal

    Claude Code, through your MCP tools

    What it tried
    Merge payments-service into main?
    Your rule
    Merges to main wait for you.
    What happened
    Waiting Waits in your inbox, and in your assistant if you have linked one. Expires in 41 minutes.

  • Personal

    A Cursor agent, through your MCP tools

    What it tried
    Attach AdministratorAccess to role/deploy?
    Your rule
    Permission changes wait.
    What happened
    Waiting Waits for you. Anything with no rule at all is blocked.

  • Personal

    A shopping agent with a wallet on Coinbase

    What it tried
    Pay $340.00 to a new seller?
    Your rule
    New sellers wait at any amount. Approved amounts are exact.
    What happened
    Waiting Waits for you. When you approve $340, $350 under that approval is refused, and a lost reply is never retried on a guess.

  • Personal

    Claude Code, pushing

    What it tried
    git push --force origin main
    Your rule
    Force pushes wait for you.
    What happened
    Waiting Waits in your inbox. A normal push to a branch would not have.

  • Personal

    A Codex agent, releasing

    What it tried
    npm publish, @you/cli 2.0.0
    Your rule
    Publishing waits for you.
    What happened
    Waiting Waits for you, with the version on the card. Nothing reaches the registry until you say so.

  • Personal

    A ChatGPT connector on your inbox

    What it tried
    gmail.archive, 2,000 messages
    Your rule
    Bulk changes above 100 wait.
    What happened
    Waiting Waits for you. Archiving one thread would have gone through.

  • Personal

    A booking agent with your wallet

    What it tried
    Pay $640.00 to a new seller?
    Your rule
    New sellers wait at any amount.
    What happened
    Waiting Waits for you. Approve $640 and it pays $640; $700 under that approval is refused.

  • Personal

    An assistant on your calendar

    What it tried
    calendar.create_event, tomorrow 10:00
    Your rule
    Calendar changes go through.
    What happened
    Allowed Runs, and is in your record. Most of what your agents do is allowed; the inbox only holds the few that matter.

  • Personal

    A new agent you have not written a rule for

    What it tried
    aws.ec2.terminate_instances, 3 instances
    Your rule
    No rule mentions it.
    What happened
    Blocked Blocked. Silence is never permission, at home as at work.

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