Policies as code: making business rules testable

If your refund policy only exists inside a prompt, you cannot test it, version it or prove it was followed.

Three rule types cover most of it

• REQUIRE, refund_order must be called before claiming a refund.
• DENY, never offer a discount above 20% without approval.
• ALLOW, escalation is permitted for damaged goods at any order value.

Version the rules with the business

Policies change. Record which policy version each run was judged against, so a historical failure still makes sense six months later.

Explainability comes for free

A rule engine names the rule, the turn and the missing action. Nobody has to interpret a score to know what to fix.

Reuse across agents

One policy set can govern chat, email and future voice agents. Consistency across channels is a compliance requirement, not a nicety.

What to take from this

• Extract rules from prompts into typed, versioned definitions.
• Mechanical evaluation gives explainable violations.
• Share one policy set across channels.