Kill Switch

Instantly kill and revive individual agents or your entire fleet. Priority 999 overrides all rules.

Instantly halt individual agents or your entire fleet. Kill switch operates at priority 999 — it overrides every other policy rule, no exceptions. Import from governance-sdk/kill-switch.

Functions

Function	Signature	Description
`createKillSwitch`	`createKillSwitch(gov: Governance) => KillSwitch`	Create a kill switch instance bound to a governance instance.
`ks.kill`	`ks.kill(agentId: string, reason: string, killedBy?: string) => Promise<KillRecord>`	Kill a single agent. All subsequent enforce() calls return blocked.
`ks.killAll`	`ks.killAll(reason: string, killedBy?: string) => Promise<KillRecord[]>`	Kill every agent in the fleet. Nuclear option.
`ks.revive`	`ks.revive(agentId: string, reason?: string) => Promise<void>`	Revive a single killed agent. Resumes normal policy evaluation.
`ks.reviveAll`	`ks.reviveAll(reason?: string) => Promise<void>`	Revive all killed agents. Restores normal fleet operation.
`ks.isKilled`	`ks.isKilled(agentId: string) => boolean`	Check whether a specific agent is currently killed.
`ks.isFleetKilled`	`ks.isFleetKilled() => boolean`	Check whether the entire fleet is currently killed.

Usage

import { createGovernance } from 'governance-sdk';
import { createKillSwitch } from 'governance-sdk/kill-switch';

const gov = createGovernance({ rules: [] });
const ks = createKillSwitch(gov);

// Kill one agent
await ks.kill('rogue-agent-7', 'Detected unauthorized data access');

// Kill the entire fleet
await ks.killAll('Emergency: credential leak detected');

// Check status
const isDown = ks.isKilled('rogue-agent-7'); // true
const fleetDown = ks.isFleetKilled();        // true

// Revive one agent
await ks.revive('rogue-agent-7');

// Revive the entire fleet
await ks.reviveAll();

Note: Priority 999 means the kill switch decision is evaluated before all other rules. Even if a rule explicitly allows an action, a killed agent stays blocked.

Enforce Integration

Killed agents are blocked automatically by enforce(). No extra checks needed in your agent code.

const decision = await gov.enforce({
  agentId: 'rogue-agent-7',
  action: 'tool_call',
  tool: 'db.query',
});

// If agent is killed:
// {
//   allowed: false,
//   blocked: true,
//   reason: 'Agent killed: Detected unauthorized data access',
//   priority: 999,
// }

API Route Pattern

Expose a kill endpoint so operators can halt agents from a dashboard or monitoring system.

import { ks } from '@/lib/governance';
import { NextResponse } from 'next/server';

export async function POST(req: Request) {
  const { agentId, reason } = await req.json();

  if (agentId) {
    await ks.kill(agentId, reason);
    return NextResponse.json({ killed: agentId });
  }

  await ks.killAll(reason);
  return NextResponse.json({ killed: 'all' });
}