Governance gate
A single decision point that allows, holds, or blocks a proposed agent action.
category ▸ Governance
Governance gate, in plain language.
A governance gate is a checkpoint in the path of an agent action that returns one of three verdicts: allow, require approval (hold), or deny. Gates compose — an action may pass identity but fail budget, or pass policy but be held for human oversight — and the most restrictive verdict wins.
Gates are what make governance enforceable rather than advisory. A written policy that lives in a document constrains nothing; a gate that refuses to execute the action constrains everything. The value of a gate is that its verdict is deterministic, testable, and recorded — you can reproduce why a decision was made.
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 composes several gates over every run. Policy-as-Code resolves allow / deny / require_approval with most-restrictive-wins precedence; Oversight Modes can only tighten the decision; cost governance blocks an over-budget run; and the MCP Gateway screens every tool call.
Each gate emits a concrete verdict — for example 403 on a restricted read, 402 over a hard cap, or 409 when an action is held for approval — and that verdict, with its matched rule and reason, is written to 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.
Fail-closed
When a control can't confirm an action is safe, it denies rather than allows.
Policy-as-Code
Governance rules written as testable, versioned code that the runtime enforces directly.
Approval gate
A hold that pauses a high-risk action until a designated human approves it.
Governed runtime
The execution layer where every agent action passes a policy gate before it can run.
See Governance gate enforced, not just defined.
Join the waitlist and watch the controls in this glossary return real verdicts, seal real evidence, and trace every fact back to its source.