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.
Book a walkthrough and watch the controls in this glossary return real verdicts, seal real evidence, and trace every fact back to its source.