Governance

Every action Torque takes — task routing, model selection, cost decisions, approval gates — passes through Arbiter governance. There is no ungoverned execution path in the engine.

How it works

Arbiter rules are declarative policy files (.arb format) with when conditions and then outcomes. Rules compile to an in-memory program that evaluates in microseconds. Each evaluation produces an Arbitrace — a full decision trace explaining which rules fired, what facts matched, and what outcome was selected.

Default bundles

Torque ships with four governance bundles:

• Routing — decides which provider and model handle each task type. Local Ollama by default, cloud fallback when configured and the task warrants it.
• Approvals — auto-approves high-confidence, low-cost work. Gates destructive actions and high-cost tasks for human sign-off.
• Cost — enforces daily spend limits, hourly token caps, and per-task budgets. Throttles execution before the circuit breaker fires.
• Flags — feature switches for runtime behavior.

Decision traces

Every governed decision is recorded in the provenance system. The Trust page in the dashboard shows which rules fired for any given task — you can see exactly why Torque chose a particular provider, required approval, or halted execution.

Extending governance

Operators can add custom rules to the existing bundles. For example, a Cinema operator might tighten cost caps on image generation days, or a Research operator might require approval for topics outside their focus areas. Rule authoring documentation is included with your purchase.