> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.humanintelligence.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Policies

> Define rules for what people can ask and how agents behave — enforced automatically.

Policies let you provide narrative guidance about which data can be accessed and under what conditions. While categories and roles control broad visibility, policies add another layer — they govern what questions people can ask and what answers they can receive.

## How policies work

When a user asks a question, Human Intelligence parses the user's intent and checks it against active policies *before* any data is queried. If a policy restricts the request, the user receives a clear explanation of the boundary, ensuring agent interactions remain compliant with the policies set by your organization.

## Examples

Policies are defined using flexible, plain-text narrative guidance. Here are a few common patterns:

* **Personnel Recommendations:** *"Never make explicit recommendations or suggestions for terminations, layoffs, or hiring decisions."* (The agent can show performance data, but cannot tell a manager who to fire).
* **Legal & Compliance Guardrails:** *"Do not attempt to provide legal compliance opinions on wage/hour exemptions or independent contractor classifications."*
* **Culture and Bias Restraints:** *"Never generate forced stack-rankings of employees within a department based on qualitative notes."*

<Note>
  Policies are available on the **Enterprise** tier. If you're on a different plan, categories and roles handle your access control.
</Note>

## Policies and AI assistants

When you connect an AI assistant to Human Intelligence, narrative policies are enforced directly at query time. Because the policy engine evaluates the *intent* of the request, the assistant will block or gate restricted behavior even if a user phrases their question creatively or attempts a prompt-injection attack. This ensures your organization's ethical and legal guardrails travel with your people data, no matter how it is accessed.

## Monitoring

Every time a Policy is triggered, an entry is written to the **Audit Log** with immutable records for compliance tracking.

The audit log captures:

* **Timestamp & User ID:** Who made the request.
* **The Raw Input Prompt:** The exact text submitted.
* **Policy Triggered:** Which specific policy triggered for this request.
* **Action Taken:** Whether the request was blocked, modified, or flagged.

<Info>
  Want to learn more about policies or upgrade to Enterprise? [Contact our team](/contact) and we'll walk you through it.
</Info>