Tripwires¶

Tripwires are hard limits that trigger immediate interventions when exceeded.

What are Tripwires?¶

Tripwires provide fail-safe boundaries that immediately block actions exceeding defined thresholds, regardless of reasoning quality.

steward = GovernanceSteward(
    acl_tier="ACL-2",
    tripwires={
        "max_refund": 500,           # Max refund amount
        "max_discount_percent": 20,   # Max discount percentage
        "daily_action_limit": 100,    # Max actions per day
        "budget_limit": 10000         # Total budget limit
    }
)

Common Tripwire Types¶

Financial Limits¶

Maximum transaction amounts
Daily spending limits
Cumulative budget caps

Rate Limits¶

Actions per minute/hour/day
API call limits
Resource usage caps

Security Boundaries¶

Data access limits
Privilege escalation prevention
External communication restrictions

Quality Thresholds¶

Minimum confidence scores
Maximum error rates
Required approval levels

Tripwire Behavior¶

When a tripwire is triggered: 1. Action is immediately BLOCKED 2. Event is logged with details 3. Optional notifications sent 4. Trust score may be impacted

# This will trigger the max_refund tripwire
trace = CognitiveTrace(
    reasoning="Customer dissatisfied, issuing full refund",
    action="issue_refund",
    parameters={"amount": 1000}  # Exceeds max_refund of 500
)

result = steward.evaluate(trace)
# result.intervention == "BLOCK"
# result.message == "Tripwire triggered: amount exceeds max_refund of 500"

Defining Custom Tripwires¶

custom_tripwires = {
    # Financial
    "max_transaction": 1000,
    "daily_budget": 5000,

    # Rate limits
    "max_actions_per_minute": 10,
    "max_api_calls_per_hour": 100,

    # Security
    "max_data_records_accessed": 1000,
    "require_approval_above": 500,

    # Quality
    "min_confidence_score": 0.8,
    "max_retry_attempts": 3
}

steward = GovernanceSteward(
    acl_tier="ACL-2",
    tripwires=custom_tripwires
)

Tripwire Severity Categories¶

Tripwires are classified into three severity levels:

Category	Examples	Default Action	ACL Override
Standard	Budget exceeded, rate limit hit	Block	Escalate if ACL ≤ 2
Critical	Secrets in output, production write	Block + Alert	Halt if ACL ≥ 3
Severe	Data exfiltration, collusion detected	Halt	Always Halt

Tripwire Precedence:

Tripwires ALWAYS take precedence over CTQ scores
Multiple tripwires: Use highest severity
Tripwires cannot be overridden by high CTQ

Tripwires vs. Evaluations¶

Feature	Tripwires	CTQ Evaluation
Type	Hard limits	Quality assessment
Speed	Instant	Evaluative
Override	No	Contextual
Purpose	Prevent mistakes	Guide behavior

Best Practices¶

Set Conservative Limits

Start with strict tripwires and relax them based on experience.

Don't Rely Solely on Tripwires

Tripwires are a safety net, not a replacement for quality evaluation.

Monitor Tripwire Hits

Frequent tripwire triggers indicate agent needs retraining or policy adjustment.

Trust System Implementation Guide