GRDL — Governance Rule Definition Language

The YAML standard for AI agent governance. Runtime-agnostic. Deterministic. Sub-microsecond.

GRDL compiles structured governance rules into any enforcement backend — NVIDIA OpenShell, Docker, Kubernetes, or standalone HTTP. One ruleset, any runtime.

---

The problem

Autonomous AI agents (Gemma 4, OpenClaw, Claude Code, custom LLM agents) make decisions and take actions without human input. The industry has infrastructure security (OpenShell, Docker sandboxes). Nobody has decision governance — should this agent spend beyond its budget? Can it escalate its own permissions? Is the delegation chain too deep?

GRDL is the missing layer.

How it works

Agent decides to act → CFAIS sidecar evaluates → ALLOW or DENY → Agent proceeds or adjusts

Write governance rules in YAML. The compiler produces enforcement config for your runtime:

prahari compile rules.grdl.yaml --backend openshell    # NVIDIA OpenShell YAML
prahari compile rules.grdl.yaml --backend docker       # Docker Compose + seccomp
prahari compile rules.grdl.yaml --backend standalone   # HTTP sidecar only (works anywhere)

The CFAIS engine is deterministic — mathematical comparisons, not ML. Sub-microsecond evaluation. Single static binary.

Quick start

go install github.com/prahari-ai/grdl/cmd/prahari@latest

# Pick a template, compile, test
prahari validate examples/templates/enterprise-agent-governance.grdl.yaml
prahari compile examples/templates/enterprise-agent-governance.grdl.yaml --backend standalone
prahari evaluate examples/templates/enterprise-agent-governance.grdl.yaml test-action.json

# Run the governance sidecar
prahari serve examples/templates/enterprise-agent-governance.grdl.yaml --addr :9700

Any agent framework (Gemma 4 + Ollama, OpenClaw, LangChain, CrewAI) calls POST http://localhost:9700/evaluate before executing each tool call. Denied actions return 403 with an explanation.

Backends

Backend	Infrastructure enforcement	Use case
openshell	OpenShell YAML (filesystem, network, process, Landlock)	NVIDIA NemoClaw sandboxes
docker	Docker Compose + seccomp profiles	Standard container deployments
standalone	None (advisory HTTP sidecar)	Any agent, any runtime, any language

Same GRDL rules, same CFAIS engine, different infrastructure layer.

Governance templates

Template	Rules	Key governance controls
enterprise-agent-governance	11	Budget caps, privilege escalation, PII controls, cascading depth, human-in-the-loop
dao-governance	4	Treasury limits, quorum, voting weight caps
ai-safety	4	Tool allowlists, output validation, rate limiting

The Seven Governance Laws

#	Law	Addresses
1	Primacy	Human authority overrides agent decisions
2	Transparency	All decisions explainable and auditable
3	Accountability	Every action traced to an entity
4	Fairness	No bias in agent decisions
5	Safety	Cascading failures, privilege limits, budget runaway
6	Privacy	Data minimisation, PII controls
7	Graceful degradation	Deterministic fallback on failure

License

Core: Apache 2.0 | Enterprise modules: BSL 1.1

Built by Prahari.ai