Architecture · Control

The layer where governance actually happens

Between where people build and where apps run sits the part IT owns: who can reach what, what gets approved, what is recorded, and what everything is doing once it is live.

An app moving from an AI assistant through the Control layer to a governed production deploy

Governance bolted on afterwards is not governance

Controls applied after an app is already running are a cleanup exercise. By then the credential is in the repo and nobody knows who owns the thing.

Review as a bottleneck

When the only control point is a human review queue, it slows every app equally and scales with headcount rather than policy.

Nothing recorded at the moment it mattered

Who deployed it, who was granted access, and what it could reach were never captured, so they have to be reconstructed later.

Access decided per app

Every builder invents their own answer to who may open this, which means there is no consistent answer at all.

A different route every time

Each team finds its own way to production, so there is no single place a policy could even be applied.

One place every app passes through

Because everything reaches production the same way, the deploy path is where policy runs. Not a queue, not a quarterly review.

Access control and approval

Who can open it, and what needed a yes

Access is decided by the platform rather than improvised per app, and approval is applied where the risk warrants it.

Role-based access
Granted at org, workspace, or individual level, with workspace roles of Admin, Contributor, and Read-only.
Tied to your SSO
Apps inherit your existing identity provider, so people sign in the way they already do everywhere else.
Approval where it matters
Gate the app that touches customer data and let the internal lookup tool flow straight through.

Audit trail

The record, produced automatically

Because access and deploys run through one path, the record is a by-product of how the system works rather than a log someone remembered to wire up.

Access history
A record for org admins of who was granted access to which projects, and when.
Execution logging
Every app run recorded, with 30-day retention, so activity is a fact rather than a reconstruction.

AI observability

What everything is doing once live

Oversight of the estate: what is running, who owns it, and what it connects to, from one admin view across the org.

Owner and connections
For any app, the named owner and the systems it can reach, without asking around.
Cost governance
AI spend attributed to the app and the team that caused it, so cost has an owner rather than arriving as one number.

Control is the layer IT owns. Every app built on the Surface layer passes through it on the way to production, which is what makes it the right place for policy: applied once, to everything, at the moment an app goes live rather than in a review weeks later. Access control, approval, the audit trail, and observability all live here. Below it sits run, where the Foundation layer takes over.

Put policy on the path, not in a queue

See what applying governance at deploy time actually looks like.