How It Works
HaltState uses a three-layer governance system designed to handle the full spectrum of agent actions - from routine operations to edge cases that require human judgment. The goal: you only see the decisions that actually need you.
The Three Layers
1 Policy Engine
Your rules, enforced automatically. Define policies in plain English like "Allow all read operations" or "Deny access to production databases" or "Require approval for payments over $1,000".
Actions matching your policies are handled instantly - allowed or denied in under 50ms with no human intervention needed. The vast majority of agent actions are handled at this layer.
Policy outcomes:
- ALLOW - Action proceeds immediately
- DENY - Action is blocked with reason
- APPROVAL_REQUIRED - Action queued for review
2 AI Consensus Council
When an action doesn't match any explicit policy, it enters the Consensus Council - a panel of independent AI judges that evaluate the request against your organization's intent and risk profile.
Each judge operates independently, analyzing:
- The action being requested and its parameters
- The context and history of the agent session
- Your organization's policies and stated intent
- Potential risks and edge cases
Council thresholds:
- 80%+ agreement to approve - Action is auto-approved
- 80%+ agreement to reject - Action is auto-denied
- 50%+ disagreement - Escalate to human oversight
This handles the long tail of edge cases without flooding your team with approval requests.
Intelligent · Multi-model · Consensus-driven3 Human Oversight
Only truly ambiguous decisions reach your team. When AI judges disagree (50%+ split), the action is escalated for human review.
What you see:
- Full context of the action request
- Each judge's reasoning and vote
- Risk assessment and relevant policies
- One-click approve or deny
In practice, this means you're reviewing the genuinely hard cases, not rubber-stamping routine operations. Most organizations see less than 5% of actions reaching human review.
Final authority · Full context · Rare escalationWhy Three Layers?
Single-layer governance systems force a tradeoff: either you approve everything (bottleneck) or you allow everything matching basic rules (risky). HaltState's three-layer approach gives you:
- Speed - Most actions resolve in milliseconds at Layer 1
- Intelligence - Edge cases get thoughtful AI analysis at Layer 2
- Control - Genuine ambiguity gets human judgment at Layer 3
Audit Trail
Every decision at every layer is cryptographically logged:
- Which layer handled the decision
- What policy matched (Layer 1) or what judges voted (Layer 2)
- Who approved and when (Layer 3)
- Full request/response context
This creates the verifiable evidence you need for compliance audits - not just logs that claim things happened, but Proof Packs that prove it.
Because trust isn't a setting. It's an architecture.
Next Steps
- Quickstart - Protect your first agent in 5 minutes
- The Guard Pattern - Learn the core SDK pattern
- Approval Lifecycle - Deep dive on Layer 2 and 3