Sanction

Sanction

The independent authorization plane for AI agents.

Before an agent spends money, invokes a tool, touches a credential, or provisions a resource, it asks Sanction. Sanction approves, escalates to a human, or denies. Every decision is logged and auditable. Sanction belongs to no platform: one policy engine answers across model providers, payment rails, identities, and agent ecosystems.

Who runs Sanction

• Organizations governing their own AI — the primary case. Teams and departments become wallets in a tree; budgets, tool rules, and approval bands are enforced — not dashboarded — with chargeback-ready reporting underneath. Alerts tell you what happened; a decision happens first.
• Platforms and agencies embedding governance — agents you ship or run for clients carry a wallet wherever they execute: MCP hosts, Bedrock, your own stack via SDK or REST.
• Individuals — free, no card, personal and production use.

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What it does

One policy decision engine governs every kind of agent action:

Governed action	What Sanction enforces
Spend (/authorize)	Auto-approve floor, human-escalation band, per-transaction hard cap, daily and monthly budgets — checked and debited atomically.
Tools (/authorize/tool)	Block/allow/escalate lists for any MCP tool or external action. Escalations reach the approval inbox like spend does.
Credentials (/exec + /mandate/verify + /credentials/inject)	AES-256-GCM envelope-encrypted vault (KMS-wrapped, rotating keys). Injection requires a scoped 15-minute mandate JWT and clearance ≥ the credential's bar. Counterparties verify the mandate with no API key. Every access audit-logged.
Provisioning (/authorize/provision)	Seats, licenses, infrastructure — resource, line item, quantity, and dollars authorized in one call.
Capability (/authorize/capability)	Skills, plugins, new APIs — acquiring capability is governed like spending money. One ordered rule list (block / allow / escalate, prefix-glob patterns) gates new power before it lands in an agent.

What a decision looks like in practice — one POST /authorize with an amount, three possible outcomes, all of them terminal or resumable:

• Approved → { "status": "approved" }; budget counters debit in the same transaction the decision persists (an advisory lock makes sibling agents queue, not race).
• Escalated → { "status": "escalated", "request_id": "…" }; a human sees it in the approval inbox, and approving mints a one-use grant the agent redeems by retrying with grant_id. Policy decides what a timeout means (approve or deny) — nothing hangs forever.
• Denied → { "status": "denied", "decision_code": "PER_TXN_LIMIT", "remediation": "Amount exceeds the per-transaction limit. Split into smaller charges or ask the owner to raise the limit." }. Codes are stable machine strings (DAILY_BUDGET_EXCEEDED, CATEGORY_BLOCKED, WALLET_FROZEN, …) so agents branch and replan instead of parsing prose. Replays of the same request return the same code.

Around the engine:

• Human approvals → one-use grants. Escalations land in an approval inbox (dashboard PWA, email, Slack). Approving mints a single-use, expiring grant the agent redeems on retry. Policy timeouts guarantee a terminal outcome.
• Seats. An agent is a seat you can hand to whoever holds it: named holders, contractor auto-expiry (the key fails closed past the date), key rotation that keeps history, and batch creation from one template.
• Budgets that cascade. Wallets nest into trees; subtree caps are enforced atomically so sibling agents can't race past a parent's limit. The console's spend view draws the month's runway — cumulative burn against the cap, pace, and the projected exhaust date — from wallet down to seat.
• Notifications that find you. Email by default; signed JSON webhooks for machines; and Slack two ways — a pasted incoming-webhook URL that deep-links to the decision, or Add to Slack, which installs per workspace over OAuth and posts interactive Approve / Deny buttons that run the same resolveApproval path as the dashboard, actor recorded. Each route subscribes to its own events. Guide
• Evidence you can replay. Every policy edit becomes an immutable revision; every decision stores the revision in force and the exact context the engine evaluated. GET /authorize/{id}/evidence re-runs the pure rules over the stored context and proves the outcome reproduces.
• What-if over real history. POST /policy/simulate replays stored decisions under a candidate policy — which calls flip, what spend wouldn't clear — before you change anything.
• The audit plane. GET /audit-events merges every decision, token log, and secret access into one feed (CSV export included); GET /reporting/summary spans any period with day buckets and per-seat rollups; wallet stats project burn pace and exhaustion ETAs; a weekly digest lands in Slack every Monday.
• Tamper-evident exports. GET /audit/export hands you a signed, hash-chained snapshot of your governed decisions: altering, dropping, or reordering any row breaks the chain, and the head is HMAC-signed by Sanction. A regulator or the governed customer runs POST /audit/verify — self-contained, no database — to prove nothing changed after signing, down to the first broken link.
• A console that opens on the roster. The dashboard home is the wallet tree as groups with agents as cards, each carrying a mandate stamp (live / paused / blocked). A wallet holds people, not just keys: team membership with roles (owner / admin / viewer), a switcher across every membership, and a viewer who can read everything and change nothing.
• Observe before enforcing a wallet's policy. Observe mode records what the engine would have done while relaxing that wallet's own policy and caps. Ancestor subtree caps remain enforced and count observed spend; freeze and authentication checks still apply. Review would-be denials and their cost, then flip each pool to enforce in one confirm-gated click.
• Spend answerable to outcomes. Report outcomes (POST /outcomes) and a wallet over its cost-per-outcome ceiling throttles to human-gated spend. Wallets can be frozen outright, and budget reallocated across the tree.
• LLM gateway. Point your model SDK's base URL at https://getsanction.com/api/gateway/<provider> with x-sanction-key — usage is metered and budget-capped with zero per-call instrumentation.

Every security claim above maps to enforcing code and a regression test in docs/TRACEABILITY.md — 1,100+ tests behind a coverage gate of 90% statements/lines, 94% functions, and 83% branches, including concurrency and Postgres row-level-security suites.

Start from a pack, not a blank policy

Eleven installable policy packs cover the common shapes — Startup defaults, Coding agent seat, MCP tool governance, Compliance baseline, Client-safe launch, and No-egress (Sanction Local) among them. GET /policy/packs lists them; POST /policy/packs/{id}/preview simulates one against your last 30 days of real decisions before anything changes; apply writes it as a policy revision.

Changing policy in production

Policy edits are never a leap of faith:

1. Draft the change (or pick a pack).
2. POST /policy/simulate replays your stored decision history under the candidate — see exactly which calls flip and what spend wouldn't clear.
3. Apply. The edit becomes an immutable revision; every subsequent decision records the revision in force.
4. If a decision is ever questioned, GET /authorize/{id}/evidence re-runs the rules over the stored context and proves the outcome reproduces.

When to use the credential vault

Use Sanction's vault when credentials should flow through the same policy, approval, and audit trail as spend and tools — one clearance model, no separate secrets cluster. Keep your existing Vault or Secrets Manager when you need fleet-scale secret lifecycle management independent of agent governance; Sanction consumes upstream identity and secrets rather than replacing them. Threat model: docs/SECURITY.md.

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Distribution

Platform vendors govern agents inside their own walls. Sanction authorizes agents wherever they run. Pick the shortest path to your stack:

You want to…	Use	First step
Govern any MCP host (Claude Desktop, Cursor, …)	MCP wallet	Paste https://getsanction.com/mcp or npx sanction-mcp
Intercept tools/call and filter tools/list on an MCP server	MCP broker	Register the upstream, point the host at /mcp/broker/<name>
Meter model spend with zero code changes	LLM gateway	Point the SDK base URL at /api/gateway/<provider>
Govern agents in a TypeScript app	SDK	npm install sanction-sdk
Call the engine from anything else	REST API	POST /v1/authorize with an x-api-key
Plug into an AuthZEN enforcement point	PDP	Point it at /api/access/v1/evaluation
Orchestrate on AWS Bedrock	Action Group	docs/BEDROCK.md

The full menu:

• MCP (agent wallet) — paste https://getsanction.com/mcp (Streamable HTTP, x-api-key) or npx sanction-mcp in any MCP host. The agent carries the wallet. Wallet Card · guide
• AuthZEN PDP — any OpenID AuthZEN 1.0 enforcement point can use Sanction as its decision point, zero custom code (guide)
• TypeScript SDK — npm install sanction-sdk (source): SanctionClient (agent plane) and SanctionAdminClient (management plane), plus framework adapters (SanctionMiddleware, sanctionTool)
• REST API — direct integration, OpenAPI 3.0 spec at /api/openapi.json (Bedrock-compatible)
• AWS Bedrock Action Group — enterprise agent orchestration (setup guide)
• LLM gateway — cross-provider metering with no code changes

Fastest first decision: bash examples/setup.sh — wallet, agent, and a demo policy in one command, printing the env exports your agent needs (examples/ has runnable clients to point at it).

Agent wallet · Quickstart · Starter kit · LangChain · CrewAI · Vercel AI SDK · Bedrock Agents · Agent fleets · AuthZEN PDP · Multi-tenant runbook · Notifications

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API

Base URL: https://getsanction.com/api/v1 — grouped by workflow. Agent endpoints take x-api-key pxy_…; management endpoints take the owner's x-mgmt-key sk_….

Ask permission — the data plane an agent calls:

POST  /authorize                — Authorize a spend action (grant_id redeems an approval)
POST  /authorize/quote          — Authorize an x402 payment challenge before the wallet signs
POST  /authorize/tool           — Authorize a tool invocation
POST  /authorize/provision      — Authorize provisioning (resource + line item + $)
POST  /authorize/capability     — Authorize acquiring capability (skill/plugin/API)
GET   /authorize/{id}           — Poll an escalated decision (grant receipt included)
POST  /tokens                   — Log LLM token consumption against the daily budget
POST  /outcomes                 — Report an outcome; spend becomes answerable to results

Escalate to a human — over the line, someone decides:

GET/POST /approvals             — The approval inbox; approving mints a one-use grant

Carry credentials — scoped mandates instead of raw secrets:

POST  /exec                     — Mint a scoped mandate JWT (15-min TTL)
POST  /mandate/verify           — Counterparty checks a presented mandate (no API key)
POST  /credentials/inject       — Inject a decrypted credential (Bearer JWT)
POST  /credentials/vault        — Store an encrypted credential (owner)
POST  /exec/revoke              — Kill a live execution token (owner)

Prove what happened — audit, evidence, reporting:

GET   /authorize/{id}/evidence  — Audit proof: re-run the pure rules over the stored
                                  context and confirm the recorded outcome reproduces
GET   /audit-events             — Unified audit feed (decisions, tokens, secret access; ?format=csv)
GET   /reporting/summary        — Any range ≤92 days: totals, day buckets, per-agent
GET   /reporting/daily-summary  — One-day rollup
GET   /audit/export             — Signed, hash-chained decision export (owner; ?download=1)
POST  /audit/verify             — Verify a tamper-evident export (recompute chain + signature)

Shape policy — edit safely, prove impact first (owner):

GET/PATCH /wallets/policy       — Read / update budgets, thresholds, lists, capability rules
POST  /policy/simulate          — Replay real history under a candidate policy (what-if)
GET   /policy/packs             — List installable policy packs (public)
POST  /policy/packs/{id}/preview — Simulate a pack against your last 30 days
POST  /policy/packs/{id}/apply  — Install a pack as the wallet policy (writes a revision)

Run the fleet — wallets, seats, keys (owner):

POST  /wallets                  — Create a wallet + policy (management key shown once)
GET   /wallets/stats            — Today + month-to-date stats + burn projections
GET   /wallets/tree             — Subtree spend rollup
POST  /wallets/keys/rotate      — Rotate the wallet's data-encryption key
POST  /agents                   — Register a seat (holder, expiry; key shown once)
POST  /agents/batch             — Stamp one template across up to 50 seats
GET/PATCH /agents               — List / per-seat budgets, clearance, holder, expiry
POST  /agents/rotate            — Rotate a seat's key (optionally pass to a new holder)
POST  /webhooks                 — Register a notification route (per-event subscriptions)
POST/GET/DELETE /broker/upstreams — Register the MCP servers the broker may front (BROKER-1)
POST  /wallets/freeze           — Pause every agent action in this wallet and its subtree
POST  /wallets/unfreeze         — Resume exactly where the fleet stopped
POST  /wallets/reallocate       — Move budget across the wallet tree
POST  /wallets/bootstrap-key    — Mint a management key for a legacy wallet
GET   /outcomes                 — Reported outcomes + cost-per-outcome state
GET   /activity                 — Recent decision activity for the console

Speak the standard — AuthZEN PDP + AARP (agent key; base https://getsanction.com/api — spec-canonical paths):

POST  /access/v1/evaluation     — OpenID AuthZEN 1.0 evaluation (decision-only)
POST  /access/v1/evaluations    — AuthZEN batch, all three evaluation semantics
POST  /access/v1/access-request — AARP: open an escalation from a signed binding token
GET   /access/v1/access-request/{id} — AARP task status (maps to the profile's states)

Full schemas: /api/openapi.json.

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MCP setup

The agent carries a Sanction wallet. Discovery: GET /.well-known/wallet-card.json. stdio MCP is cooperative — the host must ask before acting. Cursor plugin (MCP + skills): cursor-plugin/.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sanction": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["sanction-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "SANCTION_API_URL": "https://getsanction.com/api/v1",
        "SANCTION_API_KEY": "pxy_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

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Stack

Next.js 16 (App Router) + TypeScript · Prisma 7 on Neon Postgres (row-level security enforced at the database) · Vercel · jose (HS256, alg-pinned) · AES-256-GCM envelope encryption with AWS KMS root of trust in production.

Contributing & security

CONTRIBUTING.md gets you from clone to green PR (npm install && npm run check — no database needed for unit tests). Security model and disclosure: docs/SECURITY.md. Vocabulary: docs/DOMAIN.md.

Pricing

It's free, or it's an agreement. Free for individuals — no card, personal and production use. Beyond that, an enterprise agreement shaped to your deployment: SSO, policy administration, audit export, SLA. Talk to us.

License

• packages/sanction-mcp (the MCP client) — MIT. Embed it anywhere.
• Everything else (server, dashboard, API) — Functional Source License 1.1 (FSL-1.1-MIT). Source-available: use and self-host for any purpose except offering a competing service. Converts to MIT two years after release.
• Commercial use beyond the FSL — Commercial License guide (on-site).