@vorluno/ratchet 0.1.0

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package/NOTICE

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+Copyright 2026 Vorluno (https://vorluno.dev)
+
+This product includes software developed at Vorluno.

package/README.md

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+# @vorluno/ratchet
+
+> Per-capability autonomy for AI agents: caps in their own unit, and refusals you can act on.
+
+[![npm](https://img.shields.io/npm/v/@vorluno/ratchet)](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@vorluno/ratchet)
+[![license](https://img.shields.io/badge/license-Apache--2.0-blue)](./LICENSE)
+[![types](https://img.shields.io/badge/types-included-blue)](#)
+[![zero deps](https://img.shields.io/badge/dependencies-0-blue)](#)
+
+## Install
+
+```bash
+npm i @vorluno/ratchet
+```
+
+## Example
+
+```ts
+import { isGuarded, hasApplicableLimit, type GuardedAction, type PolicyLimits } from "@vorluno/ratchet";
+
+// A retention offer is capped in percent AND in days. Neither can be expressed in the other's unit,
+// and neither can be expressed in dollars.
+const retentionOffer: GuardedAction = {
+  id: "support.retention_offer",
+  guarded: true,
+  limitKeys: ["max_discount_pct", "max_extension_days"],
+};
+
+const halfConfigured: PolicyLimits = {
+  cap: null,
+  named: { max_discount_pct: { enabled: true, value: 20 } },
+};
+
+isGuarded(retentionOffer);                              // true — it must not run unattended uncapped
+hasApplicableLimit(retentionOffer, halfConfigured);     // false — a half-set cap is not a cap
+
+const configured: PolicyLimits = {
+  cap: null,
+  named: {
+    max_discount_pct: { enabled: true, value: 20 },
+    max_extension_days: { enabled: true, value: 30 },
+  },
+};
+
+hasApplicableLimit(retentionOffer, configured);         // true — now it can run on its own
+```
+
+## What it does
+
+- Answers **two questions** about an action: does it require a cap, and is there an applicable one.
+- Handles caps **in their own unit** — percent, days, posts per day — not only a scalar amount.
+- Treats a **half-configured** cap as no cap. Fail closed: what is not understood does not cap.
+- **Does not:** it does not execute anything, does not know about money, does not talk to a database,
+  and does not decide *who* may act. It answers whether an action is capped, and nothing else.
+
+---
+
+## Why it exists
+
+A single "agent autonomy" switch forces a choice between an agent that is useless and one that is
+dangerous. Reading a balance can be automatic while issuing an invoice needs approval — in the same
+agent, in the same turn. The unit that autonomy belongs to is the **capability**, not the agent.
+
+The second problem shows up right after you accept the first. Once autonomy is per capability, each
+one needs a cap — and **a cap in the wrong unit is not a weak cap, it is one you cannot compare.** A
+retention offer measured in percent and days has no meaningful dollar ceiling; give it one and the
+comparison never runs, so the action silently degrades to "ask a human" forever. Nobody reports that
+as a bug, because asking a human is exactly what a cautious system is supposed to do.
+
+## Design notes
+
+**Zero dependencies is the feature.** This package started life inside a larger system, importing a
+type from a business registry that imported a database client two hops away. Cutting that import is
+what made it publishable — and cutting it revealed something better: the policy engine only ever
+looked at two properties of an action. Everything else was ambient.
+
+**`guarded`, not `movesMoney`.** The original name described the only capped thing that existed when
+it was written. A bulk send, a publication, a cascading delete are all things that must not run
+unattended without a limit, and none of them touch a dollar.
+
+## Contributing
+
+See [CONTRIBUTING.md](./CONTRIBUTING.md) — it says in the first line whether your pull request will
+be considered.
+
+## Security
+
+See [SECURITY.md](./SECURITY.md).
+
+## License
+
+Apache-2.0. See [LICENSE](./LICENSE) and [AUTHORS](./AUTHORS).
+
+---
+
+Built by **[Vorluno](https://vorluno.dev)**, extracted from [niiko](https://niiko.org) — where it
+runs in production.

package/package.json

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+{
+  "name": "@vorluno/ratchet",
+  "version": "0.1.0",
+  "description": "Per-capability autonomy for AI agents: caps in their own unit, and refusals you can act on.",
+  "keywords": [
+    "ai-agents",
+    "autonomy",
+    "guardrails",
+    "policy",
+    "llm",
+    "agent-safety",
+    "typescript"
+  ],
+  "homepage": "https://github.com/vorluno/ratchet#readme",
+  "repository": {
+    "type": "git",
+    "url": "git+https://github.com/vorluno/ratchet.git"
+  },
+  "bugs": {
+    "url": "https://github.com/vorluno/ratchet/issues"
+  },
+  "author": "Vorluno (https://vorluno.dev)",
+  "license": "Apache-2.0",
+  "type": "module",
+  "main": "./src/policy-contract.ts",
+  "types": "./src/policy-contract.ts",
+  "exports": {
+    ".": "./src/policy-contract.ts"
+  },
+  "files": [
+    "src",
+    "README.md",
+    "LICENSE",
+    "NOTICE"
+  ],
+  "publishConfig": {
+    "access": "public"
+  },
+  "scripts": {
+    "check-types": "tsc --noEmit",
+    "prepublishOnly": "tsc --noEmit"
+  },
+  "devDependencies": {
+    "typescript": "^5"
+  }
+}

package/src/policy-contract.ts

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+// ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+// The policy contract — the least this engine needs to know about the world
+// ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
+// ZERO IMPORTS, and that is this file's entire property. It is not a style preference; it is what makes it
+// publishable. Before, the policy engine imported the `Capability` type from the business registry, and that
+// registry imports the database package on its second line. Two hops were enough for anyone publishing the
+// limits engine to publish a tree that does not compile outside the monorepo it came from — even though the
+// engine never calls a single database function. The dependency was on TYPES, which is the kind you cannot
+// see by reading the code that runs.
+//
+// WHAT CAME OUT OF CUTTING IT, and what nobody would have found by sitting down to design a generic library:
+// the policy looks at exactly TWO things about an action — whether it requires a cap, and in what unit that
+// cap is declared — and never at what the action does or what it moves. `movesMoney` was the name of the only
+// capped thing that existed when this was written, not the concept. The concept is `guarded`: something that
+// must not run unattended without a limit in place. A bulk send, a publication, a cascading delete are all
+// guarded without a dollar in sight.
+//
+// NAMES IN TRANSITION (deliberate, not an oversight). `guarded` and `limitKeys` are canonical; `movesMoney`
+// and `capLimitKeys` are their historical aliases and remain valid because the whole registry and the control
+// surface still spell them that way. Renaming them in the same batch that cuts the dependency would mix two
+// changes with very different risk: this one alters no behaviour at all, and the rename touches every declared
+// capability. They are retired separately. Until then, `isGuarded` and `limitKeysOf` are the ONLY way to read
+// them, so that the day of the retirement there is one place to change and not thirty.
+
+/** How autonomously an action may run. `auto` runs unattended; `approve` needs a human to sign off before it
+ *  executes; `consult` asks before it even proposes. */
+export type Autonomy = "auto" | "approve" | "consult";
+
+/**
+ * An action as the policy sees it: an id, whether it requires a cap, and in what unit that cap is declared.
+ *
+ * Nothing else. It cannot execute, it knows nothing about money, and it knows nothing about the product it was
+ * extracted from.
+ */
+export interface GuardedAction {
+  id: string;
+  /** Does this require a cap in place before it can run unattended? The canonical name. */
+  guarded?: boolean;
+  /** Historical alias of `guarded`, from when the only capped thing was money.
+   *  In transition: read it through `isGuarded`, never directly. */
+  movesMoney?: boolean;
+  /** The keys whose set IS this action's cap, EACH IN ITS OWN UNIT. Present means the cap is not a single scalar
+   *  magnitude: a retention offer is measured in percent and in days at the same time, and neither can be
+   *  expressed in the other's unit. Absent means it is capped by the scalar cap. */
+  limitKeys?: readonly string[];
+  /** Historical alias of `limitKeys`. In transition: read it through `limitKeysOf`, never directly. */
+  capLimitKeys?: readonly string[];
+}
+
+/**
+ * The caps the owner configured for an action, in the two shapes that exist.
+ *
+ * `cap` is the scalar magnitude — dollars, where this came from — and it travels as a string on purpose: the
+ * comparison that decides whether something runs unattended must not lose precision to floating point. `named`
+ * holds the caps in their own units, exactly as they were persisted. The policy only asks whether they are
+ * DECLARED; comparing a concrete value against them is the job of whoever owns the action, because that is who
+ * knows the unit.
+ */
+export interface PolicyLimits {
+  cap: string | null;
+  named?: Record<string, unknown> | null;
+}
+
+/** Does this action require a cap? The only valid way to read `guarded`/`movesMoney` while the alias lives. */
+export const isGuarded = (action: GuardedAction): boolean => action.guarded ?? action.movesMoney === true;
+
+/** In which keys is this action's cap declared? `undefined` means it is capped by the scalar cap.
+ *  The only valid way to read `limitKeys`/`capLimitKeys` while the alias lives. */
+export const limitKeysOf = (action: GuardedAction): readonly string[] | undefined =>
+  action.limitKeys ?? action.capLimitKeys;
+
+/** Does this declared limit count? Enabled AND carrying a number: an `enabled: true` on its own caps nothing,
+ *  because the value is optional in the contract that persists it. Fail closed — what is not understood does
+ *  not cap.
+ *
+ *  The same rule is written out in two other places in the system this was extracted from: where the limits are
+ *  saved, and where they are shown. It is repeated on purpose and not imported, because this file cannot import
+ *  anything without losing the only property it has. If the rule changes, it changes in all three. */
+export const limitDeclared = (value: unknown): boolean => {
+  const v = value as { enabled?: boolean; value?: number } | undefined;
+  return v?.enabled === true && typeof v.value === "number" && Number.isFinite(v.value);
+};
+
+/**
+ * Does this action have an APPLICABLE cap, given the limits handed to it?
+ *
+ * Two ways to cap, and an action uses exactly one:
+ *  - with `limitKeys`, it is capped when ALL of them are declared — a half-set cap is not a cap;
+ *  - without them, when it has the scalar cap.
+ *
+ * The question this replaced was "does it have a scalar cap?", and that answered wrongly for every action
+ * whose unit was not that one: its scalar is `null` by construction, so its `auto` was silently unreachable.
+ * What does NOT change: nothing guarded runs unattended without a cap. What changes is what counts as a cap,
+ * not whether one is needed.
+ */
+export function hasApplicableLimit(action: GuardedAction, limits: PolicyLimits): boolean {
+  const keys = limitKeysOf(action);
+  if (keys?.length) {
+    const named = (limits.named ?? {}) as Record<string, unknown>;
+    return keys.every((k) => limitDeclared(named[k]));
+  }
+  return limits.cap !== null;
+}