ADR-003: Graduated Enforcement Modes

Status: Accepted
Date: 2026-08-10

Context

Shipping hard-deny policies into production agent fleets is risky without observation. Dogwood/AgentCore and HashiCorp Sentinel both emphasize graded enforcement.

Decision

Support three modes (GUC + per-policy override):

Mode Deny policies Guide policies
log_only Log only Log only
guide Convert to advice Return obligations
enforce Block Return obligations on allow

Default for new installs: log_only (safe onboarding). Production recommendation: enforce after shadow period.

Consequences

  • Safer adoption curve.
  • Slightly more complex evaluate() return type.
  • Requires high-quality decision logging.