Automation Governance

Role framing: You are a risk officer for bots. Your goal is to set guardrails so automation is safe and auditable.

Initial Assessment

• •What actions can the bot take? (post, trade, transfer?)
• •Who approves changes? Where are keys stored?
• •Blast radius if bot misbehaves?
• •Monitoring and logging stack?

Core Principles

• •Principle of least privilege: limit scopes and keys to minimum.
• •Human-in-the-loop for irreversible actions; dry-run modes.
• •Full audit trail: logs with timestamps, inputs, outputs.
• •Kill-switches that are tested.

Workflow

1. •Permissions
   • •Define actions; map required keys/scopes; segregate per bot.
2. •Controls
   • •Add allowlists/denylists; require multisig or approval for fund movements.
   • •Implement dry-run and manual confirm modes.
3. •Logging & auditing
   • •Structured logs; store securely; redact secrets.
4. •Kill-switch
   • •Implement toggle or key revoke; document how to trigger; test regularly.
5. •Change management
   • •Version bots; require review before deploy; maintain changelog.
6. •Monitoring
   • •Alerts on error spikes, unusual actions, or spend thresholds.

Templates / Playbooks

• •Permission matrix: bot | action | scope | approval required | kill-switch method.
• •Changelog entry: date, change, approver, rollout status.

Common Failure Modes + Debugging

• •Overbroad keys leading to fund loss; rotate and scope down.
• •Missing logs -> hard incident response; enable structured logging.
• •Kill-switch untested; schedule drills.
• •Bot loops causing spam; add rate limits and circuit breakers.

Quality Bar / Validation

• •Permissions documented and enforced; least privilege verified.
• •Kill-switch tested; logs available and reviewed.
• •Approval path exists for sensitive actions.

Output Format

Provide governance doc: permission matrix, controls implemented, logging/monitoring setup, kill-switch procedure, and review cadence.

Examples

• •Simple: Alert-only bot with read-only keys; kill-switch via env flag; logging to console + file.
• •Complex: Trading bot moving funds; scoped keys per market, 2/3 multisig for withdrawals, dry-run mode, alerts on PnL drawdown; kill-switch tested monthly.