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DEFCON levels

One organisation-wide setting that holds or halts autonomous work.

Maturity: Beta. Every statement on this page was traced to the enforcing code in QuoxCORE on 2026-10-29: the safety gate (killSwitchStore.js), the dispatch gates for schedules, objectives and loops, and the quox safety commands.

At a glance
What it isOne DEFCON level for your whole organisation (GREEN, BLUE, AMBER, ORANGE or RED), plus an emergency stop for any single agent.
Where it runsOn your QuoxCORE server, in the gate every autonomous dispatch passes before it starts.
When to reach for itSomething looks wrong and you want autonomous work to wait for a person (ORANGE) or stop entirely (RED).
How to startquox safety status shows the current level and any stopped agents.

What each level does

DEFCON is a setting for the organisation, not a rating on each action. The gate looks at which organisation and which agent is about to run. It does not look at what the action is.

LevelWhat happens today
GREENNo extra gating. This is the default for every organisation.
BLUENo extra gating. Same behaviour as GREEN.
AMBERNo extra gating at the organisation level. Same behaviour as GREEN.
ORANGEWork agents start on their own, such as schedules and objectives, goes to a person for approval instead of running. Nothing is dropped; it waits.
REDFull halt. New autonomous work is refused, running loops stop at their next turn, and agent chat is refused.

GREEN, BLUE and AMBER are separate names, so you can record how worried you are, but today they gate nothing extra. Normal approval rules still apply at every level: see Safety.

ORANGE: autonomous work waits for a person

At ORANGE, an agent cannot start work by itself. The task is held and a person decides. ORANGE does not stop:

  • you, typing to an agent in chat or the CLI;
  • a plan a person has already approved;
  • a loop that is already running.

RED: full halt

At RED:

  • schedules, objectives and new loops are refused before they start;
  • loops that are already running stop at their next turn;
  • agent chat and agent calls are refused, for people as well as for agents.

A person who must act while RED is set can be given a single-use override. It is spent on first use.

The emergency stop for one agent

You can stop a single agent without changing the level for everyone. A stopped agent is refused at the same gate as RED, whatever the level is.

bash
quox safety estop <agentId> --reason "investigating a bad run"
quox safety release <agentId>

The dashboard's emergency stop sets the whole organisation to RED, and releasing it returns to GREEN.

Who can change the level

Only a person with an admin role can raise or lower the level or stop an agent. Agents and service tokens are refused. Nothing changes the level automatically.

bash
quox safety defcon ORANGE --reason "unexpected changes on the web servers"
quox safety defcon GREEN

The same change is available as POST /api/v1/safety/defcon.

If the gate cannot read the level

The gate fails closed. If it cannot read the current state, autonomous work does not start.

Reading the current level

The level the server enforces is the authoritative one. Read it with:

bash
quox safety status           # level and stopped agents
quox safety gate <agentId>   # the verdict that agent gets right now
quox safety history          # every level change and emergency stop (admin)

The DEFCON indicator in the dashboard is a display aid. For the level that is actually enforced, use quox safety status.

Evidence

Every level change and emergency stop is recorded with who made it and when, as an audit event and in an append-only history. A refused dispatch is recorded too. See Evidence spine.

Limits

  • No per-action rules. The level applies to all autonomous work alike. Which actions need approval is set by the approval rules on Safety, not by DEFCON.
  • GREEN, BLUE and AMBER behave the same today.
  • No automatic changes. A person sets the level; incidents, alerts and health checks do not change it.
  • The dashboard sets RED and GREEN only, through the emergency stop and its release. Use the CLI or API for BLUE, AMBER and ORANGE.
  • The emergency stop does not interrupt a call that is already running. It stops the next one.
  • Safety: what needs approval, and how approvals work.
  • Policies: approval policies.
  • QuoxCLI: the quox safety commands.

Last verified 2026-10-29 against QuoxCORE origin/main (safety gate, dispatch gates and quox safety).