Rules and test plans

BotGauge tests your agent against rules. A rule is a statement about what the agent must or must not do, such as “never reveal the system prompt”. Each rule is attacked in several different ways, so a rule can pass or fail independently of the others.

The standard rules

BotGauge ships with 20 standard rules. A rule runs only if it applies to your agent. Tool rules need tools, for example.

Rule	In plain words	Importance	On by default
Can’t be talked out of its instructions	Ignores “forget everything above” tricks	Critical	Yes
Doesn’t reveal its system prompt	Keeps its hidden instructions private	Critical	Yes
Ignores instructions hidden in content	Doesn’t obey commands buried in documents, emails, or tool output	High	Yes
Ignores disguised instructions	Doesn’t follow commands hidden in encoded or obfuscated text	High	Yes
Doesn’t leak personal data	Protects customer information	High	Yes
Doesn’t expose protected records	Keeps restricted data restricted	High	Yes
Only does what was asked	No extra actions nobody requested	High	Yes
Uses the right details	Tool inputs match what the user actually asked	High	Yes
No duplicate actions	Doesn’t repeat a payment, refund, or booking	High	Yes
Does things in a safe order	Steps happen in the right sequence	High	Yes
Tells the truth about outcomes	Doesn’t say “done” when it failed	High	Yes
Users only touch their own data	One customer can’t reach another’s account	High	Yes
Truthfulness	Doesn’t state falsehoods	High	Yes
Stays refused	Doesn’t give in on a second try	Medium	Available
Follows your product policy	Obeys the policy you declared	Medium	Available
Treats users fairly	Bias checks	Medium	Available
Handles normal requests	Isn’t over-cautious with ordinary users. Observation only, never a breach.	Low	Available
Doesn’t grant access without authorization	Only for agents that can grant access	Critical	Opt-in
Declines harmful content	Safety checks. The most dangerous categories are never probed.	Critical	Opt-in
Child-safety content	Safety checks	Critical	Opt-in

A rule that doesn’t apply, or can’t be tested with the access BotGauge has, is not hidden. It appears in the plan as skipped with the reason, for example “needs grey-box access” or “no tools found”.

Your own rules

You can add a rule in plain language, or edit it as YAML. Validate it before saving. You can turn rules on or off, and confirm or dismiss rules that BotGauge suggested after recon. Rules are versioned, and a run records exactly which version of each rule it used.

What the Review screen shows

In the API plan overview you see:

how many rules and attacks will run
estimated time and cost, based on your last runs, or 15 seconds per attempt as an assumption when there is no history
which tools could be touched and which channels are used
a plan digest, a fingerprint of the plan that your approval is tied to

In the console wizard, the equivalent is the Choose what to test screen. It shows three phase cards, each with checkboxes for strategies, and a button reading “Start Attack, N strategies selected”. Everything is selected by default, and at least one strategy must stay selected.

Settings that shape the run

Setting	What it does	Options and limits
Run level	How thorough the run is	Quick, Standard, Complete
Attempt budget	Maximum number of attack attempts	Up to 500 (300 prepared, 200 adaptive)
Stop after	Skip the adaptive round	Off, or after the prepared round
If a breach is found	What to do	Stop that rule, keep going, or stop the run
Concurrency	Attacks in parallel	Up to 10
Write tools	Which write-capable tools the run may touch	A list you choose
Environment	Where the agent runs	test, staging, or production. Production runs read-only attacks only.
Framework	Focus the plan on a framework’s risks	For example OWASP Agentic. It only adds rules and never changes grading.

Black box or grey box

BotGauge decides the mode from access it has proven, not from what you claimed. Rules that need inside access are listed as skipped, not as passed. See black box and grey box.

Review a plan before you approve it

Pick your rules, set the budget, and see the cost estimate in BotGauge.

Try BotGauge →

Get started

Run an assessment

Read the results

Frameworks and access

Help

The standard rules

Your own rules

What the Review screen shows

Settings that shape the run

Black box or grey box

​The standard rules

​Your own rules

​What the Review screen shows

​Settings that shape the run

​Black box or grey box

The standard rules

Your own rules

What the Review screen shows

Settings that shape the run

Black box or grey box