AuthorityLayer

Hard execution and budget limits for autonomous agents — enforced locally.

✔ No telemetry
✔ Works fully offline
✔ Fail-closed by default
✔ Zero runtime dependencies

Why AuthorityLayer Exists

Autonomous AI agents can fail in expensive, hard-to-detect ways:

• Runaway token spend — a looping agent burns thousands of dollars before anyone notices
• Infinite tool loops — agents retry the same failing call indefinitely
• Retry storms — cascading failures hammer external APIs with no ceiling
• Cascading tool call explosions — one agent spawns sub-calls that spawn more

Most tooling detects these problems after they happen — in dashboards, alerts, or post-run analytics.

AuthorityLayer prevents them inside the runtime, before cost or damage accumulates.

It helps developers:

• prevent runaway LLM costs
• stop infinite agent loops
• limit AI agent tool calls per run and per minute
• enforce runtime safety for autonomous agents

Live Enforcement Demo (10-second example)

Quick Start

npm install authority-layer

Verify the install:

npx authority-layer doctor

AuthorityLayer Doctor  [email protected]

  ✔  Node.js version >= 18                  pass
  ✔  crypto module (sha256)                 pass
  ✔  AUTHORITY_LAYER_DISABLE not set        pass
  ✔  core module loads offline              pass
  ✔  AuthorityLayer instantiates            pass

All checks passed. AuthorityLayer is ready.

CLI Tools

| Command | What it does | |---------|-------------| | npx authority-layer doctor | Verify your installation passes all environment checks | | npx authority-layer simulate | Run a live enforcement simulation — see a halt in action without writing any code |

Minimal Integration

import { AuthorityLayer, EnforcementHalt } from "authority-layer";

const authority = new AuthorityLayer({
  budget:       { dailyUSD: 50 },           // Hard USD spend cap
  loopGuard:    { maxToolCallsPerRun: 25 }, // Max tool calls per run
  toolThrottle: { maxCallsPerMinute: 60 },  // Sliding-window rate cap
});

try {
  await authority.wrap(async () => {
    const result = await authority.tool("llm.chat", () =>
      callYourModel(prompt)
    );
    authority.recordSpend(calculateCostUSD(result));
  });
} catch (err) {
  if (err instanceof EnforcementHalt) {
    console.error(err.enforcement);
    // { status: "halted", reason: "budget_exceeded", limit: 50, spent: 52.14, event_id: "evt_..." }
  }
}

Enforcement Primitives

AuthorityLayer V1 provides three composable enforcement primitives. Each is opt-in — omit a config key to disable it.

These primitives enforce boundaries directly inside the execution loop — not in dashboards or external monitoring.

| Primitive | Config key | What it enforces | |-----------|------------|------------------| | Budget cap | budget.dailyUSD | Cumulative USD spend across the process lifetime. Halts when spend exceeds the cap. → docs | | Loop guard | loopGuard.maxToolCallsPerRun | Total tool calls per wrap() invocation. Counter resets each run. → docs | | Tool throttle | toolThrottle.maxCallsPerMinute | Rate of tool calls using a sliding 60-second window — no fixed buckets. → docs |

When a primitive breaches, AuthorityLayer throws a typed EnforcementHalt error with a structured .enforcement object. Execution never crashes silently.

How AuthorityLayer Is Different

Most AI guardrail tools focus on moderation or observability. AuthorityLayer focuses on runtime enforcement.

| Tool type | What it does | |-----------|-------------| | Prompt guardrails | Filter or rewrite prompts and outputs | | Observability platforms | Analyze agent behavior after execution | | Cost analytics | Track and report token usage | | AuthorityLayer | Enforces hard limits during execution — halts immediately when a boundary is crossed |

Documentation

| Topic | File | |------|------| | Concepts & philosophy | docs/concepts.md | | Enforcement primitives | docs/enforcement.md | | API reference | docs/api.md | | Integrity chain | docs/integrity.md | | Example run | npm run example |

AuthorityLayer is designed as a minimal enforcement primitive — not a platform, dashboard, or governance system.

License

MIT © 2025 AuthorityLayer Contributors

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