Break-glass
An audited override that lets an authorized human force a held action through, with a recorded reason.
category ▸ Governance
Break-glass, in plain language.
Break-glass is the controlled escape hatch for emergencies: a way for an authorized person to override a hold and force a pending action to execute when waiting is not an option. The defining feature is not the override itself but the accountability around it — break-glass is always logged, attributed, and reason-bearing.
The name comes from the fire-alarm pull: easy to reach when you genuinely need it, impossible to use invisibly. A break-glass action that left no trace would be a backdoor; one that demands a recorded justification turns an exception into evidence.
How Cortex implements it.
This term isn't abstract here — it maps to a real capability in the runtime. Here is exactly how Cortex enforces or relates to it.
Cortex's break-glass force-executes a pending_approval action but requires a mandatory audited reason. It records who decided and why (decisionReason = "break-glass: …") and emits an ActionBreakGlass event, so the override is itself part of the tamper-evident trail.
Break-glass requires a platform-admin session — it is a privileged, scoped capability, not a default path — and like every other action transition, it is sealed into the Trust Ledger.
Keep building the vocabulary.
These terms sit next to this one in the governed-AI model — follow the thread to see how the controls connect.
Approval gate
A hold that pauses a high-risk action until a designated human approves it.
Oversight modes
Per-agent autonomy levels that decide whether an action executes now or waits for a human.
Trust Ledger
A tamper-evident, hash-chained record of every governed run, action, and approval.
RBAC
Role-based access control — permissions granted by role rather than to individuals.
See Break-glass enforced, not just defined.
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