What is a house rule?

A house rule is a limit a business sets on its own AI agents, on top of what the law and the platform require. A refund cap or a rule that new payees need two approvers is a house rule. Together they are one of the five bounds every agent action must meet.

Why do house rules matter?

Because they are where a business's judgement lives. Regulation sets minimums; the platform sets a floor. Between those and what the agent is technically able to do sits the space a business shapes for itself. A contact centre might let its agent issue goodwill credits up to a modest amount; a cautious lender might hold every credit at any amount. Both are legitimate. The house rule records the choice.

House rules are also what reviewers apply most often. When an agent holds an action, the reason is usually a house rule, not a law. A reviewer who does not know the house rules cannot tell whether a hold was correct, or what they are entitled to approve.

How does a house rule work in practice?

Each house rule is written as a limit on a capability: what the agent may do, up to what amount or under what conditions, and what happens beyond it. Beyond the rule, the action is refused (the agent may not do it) or held (it may draft, but a named person decides). Every verdict names the bound that decided it, so the record shows which house rule caused each hold.

Because they are the business's own, house rules can change. A change should go through the control owner, be tested before it goes live and be filed. Loosening a house rule to clear a backlog is the classic mistake.

An example

Take a hypothetical contact centre for a broadband provider. Its house rules say the agent may issue service credits up to a set amount for verified outages, must hold any credit above that for a team lead, and must hold any credit to an account with an open complaint. A customer reports three days without service. The outage is confirmed in the network status feed, a sealed source, so the agent issues the standard credit at depth 3. A week later the same customer asks for a larger credit while a complaint is open; the agent holds it, naming the open-complaint rule. Setting up the approval side of those rules is covered in how to set an approver rule for the contact centre.

How is a house rule different from a platform guardrail?

A house rule is set by the business and can only narrow what an agent may do. A platform guardrail is set by Pryme and applies to every agent at every depth. When a house rule stops an action, the verdict is refused or held. When the platform floor stops it, the verdict is withheld: the action exists and works, but no agent will take it. Withheld is a platform decision, never a customer setting.

House rules also differ from the law. A compliance agent should cite which it is applying, because "our policy" and "the regulation" carry different weight with a customer. The argument is in a compliance agent should cite the rule.

Who needs to know the house rules?

Everyone who reviews or approves the agent's work. In finance, house rules on payments are the core of the job, as in how to set an approver rule for the accounts payable team and which AI agent skills matter most for accounts payable clerks. The guide to AI agent skills by role covers the rest.