Policies Reference

Replay policies, fixture provenance, side-effect classes, capture/redaction policy, validity labels, and adapter capability status.

Policies are part of the evidence. Every replay, experiment, and report should name the policies that shaped the output.

Replay Policy

{
  "model": "recorded-only",
  "tool": "pause-for-fixture",
  "drift": "continue_to_terminal",
  "maxSteps": 100,
  "temperatureOverride": 0
}

Model Policy

Value	Meaning	Current local engine
`recorded-only`	Use captured model outputs.	Supported.
`determinism-probe`	Repeat under same policy to detect variance.	Schema-supported; executor-dependent.
`pinned-live`	Re-run with a pinned provider/model/config.	Fails without explicit executor.
`compatible-live`	Re-run with a compatible live model.	Fails without explicit executor.
`provider-fixture`	Use provider-supplied fixture output.	Schema-supported; executor-dependent.
`blocked`	Do not allow model execution.	Useful safety state.

Tool Policy

Value	Meaning	Current local engine
`recorded-only`	Only use recorded tool outputs.	Errors on missing divergent fixtures.
`pause-for-fixture`	Pause when a divergent output is missing.	Supported and recommended.
`analyst-fixture`	Allow analyst-supplied fixtures.	Modeled through fixture provenance.
`simulated`	Allow simulator outputs.	Modeled through fixture provenance.
`live-readonly`	Allow live read-only tool execution.	Fails without explicit executor.
`live-explicit`	Allow explicit live tool execution.	Fails without explicit executor.
`blocked`	Block tool execution.	Errors on missing divergent tool output.

Drift Policy

Value	Use when
`stop_on_first_divergence`	You only want to isolate the earliest changed event.
`continue_to_terminal`	Default for RCA because downstream effects matter.
`continue_until_budget`	Future-facing mode for bounded long replays.

Fixture Provenance

Value	Meaning
`recorded`	Output copied from captured trace evidence.
`analyst_fixture`	Output supplied by a human analyst or approved source.
`ai_fixture`	Output simulated by an AI model.
`simulator`	Output generated by a declared simulator.
`live_readonly`	Output from a live read-only tool.
`live_explicit`	Output from a live side-effecting tool with explicit approval.

Side-Effect Classes

Value	Meaning
`none`	No runtime side effect.
`read`	Reads local or external data without mutation.
`write`	Writes local state or files.
`external_mutation`	Sends, deploys, deletes, purchases, or mutates an external system.
`unknown`	Not classified. Treat conservatively.

Managed runtime helpers infer side effects from tool names as a fallback. Override this for important tools.

Capture Policy

{
  "defaultAction": "capture",
  "rules": [
    { "path": "customerEmail", "action": "mask", "reason": "PII" },
    { "path": "authorization", "action": "drop", "reason": "secret" }
  ]
}

Action	Current implementation
`capture`	Capture after default pattern redaction.
`drop`	Replace field with `null`.
`hash`	Replace field with `[HASHED]`.
`mask`	Replace field with `[REDACTED]`.

encrypt, artifact_only, and metadata_only are not capture policy actions in v0.3.

Default redaction masks emails, phones, API-key-like tokens, JWTs, credit-card-like numbers, and secret-looking object keys.

Validity Labels

Label	Trigger
`confirmed_by_replay`	Metrics exist and no stronger caveat is detected.
`sensitive_to_fixture`	Fixture-related metrics are positive.
`model_nondeterministic`	Variance-related metrics are positive.
`diverged_but_comparable`	Any diff has `diverged_but_comparable`.
`non_comparable`	Any diff has `non_comparable`.
`unsupported`	No evidence supports stronger labels.

Adapter Capability Status

Status	Meaning
`native_full`	Runtime primitives support native replacement or safe interception.
`managed_replay`	Adapter can capture and steer, but runtime limitations remain.
`observability_only`	Useful trace capture without deterministic replay.
`unsupported`	Public API does not expose the primitive.

Interception modes include native_replace, proxy_replace, post_result_replace, block_only, and observe_only.

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