Integration Guardrails
When agents interact with third-party services (Slack, GitHub, Gmail, Stripe, etc.), guardrails ensure they can’t take destructive actions without oversight, exceed rate limits, or operate outside their assigned permissions.Guardrails are enforced at the engine level — they apply to all channels, all agents, and all integration methods (MCP Bridge, REST API, and direct tool calls).
Action Risk Classification
Every integration action is classified by its verb into one of three risk levels:How classification works
The engine scans the action verb for known keywords. The first matching verb determines the risk level. If no known verb is found, the action defaults to soft (preview required) — erring on the side of caution.Risk metadata
Each risk level carries UI metadata for consistent display:Rate Limits
Per-service rate limits prevent runaway agents from spamming APIs. Each service has a configured maximum number of actions within a sliding time window.Default limits
How rate limiting works
The engine tracks actions per service in a sliding window:- Each action increments the service counter
- If the counter exceeds
maxActions, the action is blocked - The window resets automatically after
windowMinutes - You can manually reset a service’s window (e.g., after resolving an issue)
Rate limit response
When an agent hits a rate limit, it receives:Agent Service Permissions
Each agent can be assigned a specific access level per integration service, controlling what kinds of actions it’s allowed to perform.Access levels
How permissions are checked
Dry-Run Plans
Before executing multi-step integration workflows, agents can generate a dry-run plan that shows every action they intend to take — with risk levels, targets, and previews.Plan structure
Automatic confirmation required
A plan requires explicit user confirmation when:- Any step is hard-risk (delete, archive, transfer, etc.)
- The plan has more than 3 steps (regardless of risk levels)
Example plan
Credential Audit Log
Every integration action is logged to an audit trail for security review and compliance:Related
- Security — full defense-in-depth overview
- Integrations — how integrations work
- MCP Bridge — 25,000+ tools via n8n

