Gate Rules

Gate rules define conditions that must pass before a stage proceeds. They're evaluated by the gate engine after a stage completes and produce a verdict that routes the pipeline.

Rule structure

Each rule has five fields:

Field	Type	Purpose
field	string	What to check (see fields table below)
operator	string	How to compare (see operators table below)
value	any	The threshold to compare against
severity	string	How bad a failure is (warn, required, block)
onFail	string	What to do when the rule fails
label	string	Human-readable description shown in the UI

Available fields

Gate rules evaluate against a context object. The available fields differ depending on whether the stage is part of a UI-configured pipeline or a YAML playbook.

UI pipeline stages

Field	Type	Description
exit_code	integer	Process exit code (0 = success)
cost_usd	number	Total cost in USD (currently reported as 0 — result doc parsing not yet wired in UI path)
tokens_in	integer	Input token count (currently 0 — same limitation)
tokens_out	integer	Output token count (currently 0 — same limitation)
provider	string	Provider name reported by the driver
model	string	Model identifier reported by the driver
driver	string	Driver name

YAML playbook stages

Playbook stages evaluate rules against the result document directly using dot-path notation:

Field	Type	Description
verdict	string	Result document verdict: pass, fail, blocked
timing.duration_sec	number	Stage duration in seconds
run.attempt	integer	Attempt number (1 = first try, 2 = first retry, etc.)
meta.input_tokens	integer	Input token count
meta.output_tokens	integer	Output token count
meta.cost_usd	number	Cost in USD

Operators

Operator	Meaning
equals	Exact match
not_equals	Not equal
less_than	Strictly less than
greater_than	Strictly greater than
contains	String or array contains value
matches	Regex match
in	Value is in a list
exists	Field is present and non-null

Severity levels

Severity	Meaning
warn	Rule failure is logged and shown in the UI but does not affect routing
required	Rule failure triggers onFail action
block	Same as required but displayed prominently as a blocker

onFail actions

Action	Effect
proceed	Ignore the failure; continue
hold	Pause the run for manual decision
rework	Route to onFail stage
abort	Stop the pipeline; mark the run failed
notify	Log the failure (no routing change)
escalate	Escalate for attention (no routing change)

Verdict resolution

When multiple rules fail, the gate engine takes the worst onFail action across all failed rules (severity order: abort > rework > hold > proceed). That worst action becomes the gate verdict.

Example

Hold if the implementation stage takes longer than 2 hours, and warn if it uses more than 100k input tokens:

rules:
  - field: timing.duration_sec
    operator: less_than
    value: 7200
    severity: block
    onFail: hold
    label: "2 hour cap"
  - field: tokens.input
    operator: less_than
    value: 100000
    severity: warn
    onFail: proceed
    label: "Token budget warning"