Policy Engine

How PINTI evaluates spend intents against your policies.

Mental Model

Every spend intent goes through an evaluation pipeline. Think of it as a series of gates — the first failure short-circuits the evaluation:

Policy exists?
  → Merchant not blocked?
    → Category not blocked?
      → Merchant in whitelist? (if set)
        → Category in whitelist? (if set)
          → Under single-transaction limit?
            → Under daily limit?
              → Under monthly limit?
                → Under velocity limits?
                  → Under approval threshold?
                    → ALLOW ✓

Evaluation Pipeline

#	Check	Decision	Reason
1	Policy exists and is active	DENY	NO_ACTIVE_POLICY
2	Merchant not in blockedMerchants	DENY	BLOCKED_MERCHANT
3	Category not in blockedCategories	DENY	BLOCKED_CATEGORY
4	Merchant in allowedMerchants (if set)	DENY	MERCHANT_NOT_ALLOWED
5	Category in allowedCategories (if set)	DENY	CATEGORY_NOT_ALLOWED
6	Amount ≤ maxSingleAmount	DENY	EXCEEDS_SINGLE_LIMIT
7	(dailyTotal + amount) ≤ dailyLimit	DENY	EXCEEDS_DAILY_LIMIT
8	(monthlyTotal + amount) ≤ monthlyLimit	DENY	EXCEEDS_MONTHLY_LIMIT
9	Transactions/min ≤ maxTransactionsPerMinute	DENY	VELOCITY_LIMIT_MINUTE
10	Transactions/hour ≤ maxTransactionsPerHour	DENY	VELOCITY_LIMIT_HOUR
11	Amount ≤ requireApprovalOver	REQUIRE_APPROVAL	REQUIRES_APPROVAL
12	All checks passed	ALLOW	OK

Note

When the decision is REQUIRE_APPROVAL, the spend is paused until a human approves or rejects it. See Approvals & Callbacks for the full notification and callback flow.

Note

Daily and monthly totals only count ALLOW decisions. Denied or pending-approval requests don't count toward your limits.

Policy Fields

Field	Type	Description
`name`	string	Human-readable policy name
`unit`	string	Currency unit (e.g. "USD"). Must match the intent.
`maxSingleAmount`	number \| null	Max allowed per single transaction (minor units). Null = no limit.
`dailyLimit`	number \| null	Max total spend per day (UTC). Null = no limit.
`monthlyLimit`	number \| null	Max total spend per month (UTC). Null = no limit.
`requireApprovalOver`	number \| null	Amounts above this trigger human approval. Null = never require.
`maxTransactionsPerMinute`	number \| null	Max transactions per minute. Null = no limit.
`maxTransactionsPerHour`	number \| null	Max transactions per hour. Null = no limit.
`allowedMerchants`	string[]	Whitelist. Empty = allow all. Non-empty = only these merchants.
`blockedMerchants`	string[]	Blocklist. These merchants are always denied.
`allowedCategories`	string[]	Whitelist. Empty = allow all. Non-empty = only these categories.
`blockedCategories`	string[]	Blocklist. These categories are always denied.
`isActive`	boolean	Toggle policy on/off without deleting.

Policy Resolution

PINTI uses the first active policy in your workspace. If no active policy exists, all spend intents are denied with NO_ACTIVE_POLICY.

Tip

Only one policy can be active at a time per workspace. Toggle policies on/off from the Dashboard to switch between rule sets.

Best Practices

Start Simple

Begin with one policy with conservative limits. Increase limits as you build confidence in your agent's behavior.

Example Policy Sets

Basic daily limit

$50/day limit, no single-transaction cap

{
  "name": "Conservative",
  "dailyLimit": 5000,
  "unit": "USD"
}

OpenAI-only with approval threshold

Only OpenAI, approve over $50

{
  "name": "OpenAI Only",
  "allowedMerchants": ["openai.com"],
  "requireApprovalOver": 5000,
  "dailyLimit": 50000,
  "unit": "USD"
}

Blocked merchant list with velocity limits

Block bad merchants, max 10 tx/min

{
  "name": "Production Policy",
  "blockedMerchants": ["evil.com", "scam.io"],
  "maxSingleAmount": 20000,
  "dailyLimit": 100000,
  "monthlyLimit": 1000000,
  "maxTransactionsPerMinute": 10,
  "maxTransactionsPerHour": 100,
  "requireApprovalOver": 10000,
  "unit": "USD"
}

Note

All amount fields are in minor currency units (e.g. 5000 = $50.00 in cents).