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A purpose is a declarative rule: “for this kind of work, these elements are allowed, with this TTL.” Defining your first purpose graduates your adoption from L1 (observe) to L2 (test) on the maturity model.

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Where purposes come from

Two paths:
  1. Generalize from observation — Inviolet’s Generalize workflow suggests purposes based on observed query patterns. Best for teams with 2+ weeks of observation data.
  2. Manual declaration — write a purpose against a known workflow. Best for greenfield use cases.
This guide covers the manual path. For the generalize-from-observation path see Generalize from observation.

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Anatomy of a purpose

id: customer_support_lookup
name: "Customer Support Lookup"
description: "Look up a customer's identity + recent order history when answering a support ticket."
elements:
  - customer.name
  - customer.email
  - customer.order_history
ttl_seconds: 300
identity_required: true
approval_required: false
  • elements is the column allowlist. Anything outside this list will be rewritten or blocked at the database proxy.
  • ttl_seconds bounds the lifetime of any intent token minted under this purpose.
  • identity_required forces an IdP-authenticated user_id to be present on every call.
  • approval_required routes the call through a Slack / email approval queue before any intent token is minted.

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Create the purpose

  1. App dashboard → Purposes → Compose (new in Phase 18 lifecycle)
  2. Fill the form fields above
  3. Save — the purpose is created in shadow mode by default

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Run in shadow mode

Shadow mode evaluates the policy on every matching tool call but does NOT block anything. The decision feed shows what would have happened. Watch this for a week or two.

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Promote to live

Once the shadow stats look right (low false-positive denials, high match-rate on intended traffic), promote with one click: App dashboard → Purposes → pick the purpose → Promote to live Promotion is immediate. The next matching tool call gets a live decision written to the audit log.