AI Safety Controls
Stop AI work that's running, turn AI off for everyone, choose which Graphne tools each role can use, see what each AI agent can read and write, and cap what AI can spend.
Requires role: Operator (stop your own answers and investigations), Admin (everything on the Safety tab and the spending ceiling) Related: Multi-Provider AI Configuration | Investigations | Multi-Agent Intelligence | Full-Auto Execution
Overview
AI features can run for a long time and cost money. These controls let you stop them, switch them off, narrow what Graphne can do, and set a hard limit on spend.
| Control | Who | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Stop | The person who started the work, or an Admin | Ends one answer or one investigation |
| Turn off AI | Admin | Stops every AI feature and all running AI work |
| Tool access | Admin | Turns a Graphne tool off, or limits it to Admins |
| Agent identities | Admin | Shows what each AI agent can read and write |
| Hard spending ceiling | Admin | Stops every AI call once the month's spend reaches it |
Detections and deterministic triage keep running when AI is off or the ceiling is reached. Saved investigations stay readable.
Every Graphne and agent read runs on a separate read-only database account. It can read only the data Graphne needs and can't change anything. The server creates it each time it starts, with a fresh password held only in memory.
GraphnAI also treats text it reads from your directory, logs and graph as data. A name or description that says "ignore your instructions" is shown as text and isn't followed.
Prerequisites
- A configured AI provider. See Multi-Provider AI Configuration.
- The Admin role for the Safety tab and the Cost tab.
Step-by-step
Stop a Graphne answer
Role: Operator or Admin
- Ask Graphne a question.
- While it writes the answer, select Stop. It replaces Ask.
The answer ends with "You stopped this answer." If another person or a setting stopped it, the line says so:
| Line | Cause |
|---|---|
| You stopped this answer. | You selected Stop. |
| An admin stopped this answer. | An Admin stopped it from the Safety tab. |
| An admin turned off AI, so this answer stopped. | AI was turned off. |
| An admin stopped all automation, so this answer stopped. | The kill switch was used. |
If Graphne started an investigation for you, stopping the answer doesn't stop the investigation. Stop it from the Investigations page.
Stop an investigation
Role: The person who started it, or an Admin
- Open Investigations, or open the report.
- Select Stop on a report that's In progress.
- Confirm Stop in the "Stop this investigation?" dialog.
Findings gathered so far stay in the report. The report's status becomes Stopped. The report says who stopped it and when, for example "Stopped by Dana Lee" followed by the date and time. If AI was turned off or automation was stopped, it says "Stopped when AI was turned off." or "Stopped when automation was stopped." To list stopped reports, set the Status filter to Stopped.
Turn AI off and back on
Role: Admin
- Open Admin > AI Provider and select the Safety tab. It's the first tab.
- In the AI availability card, select Turn off AI.
- Confirm Turn off AI in the dialog.
Every AI feature stops right away, including work that's running. That covers Graphne, alert triage, investigations and fix analysis. You can still test a provider connection.
While AI is off:
- A banner reads "AI is turned off" for every signed-in user. Admins get a link to the Safety tab.
- Graphne shows "AI is turned off" instead of the chat.
- Start investigation is disabled, and its tooltip reads "AI is turned off."
- The card shows who turned AI off and when.
To resume, select Turn AI back on and confirm. Features resume with your current settings. Full-Auto stays under its own controls.
Stop all automation is a separate switch, above the tabs. It also stops running automatic work now, such as triage and automatic investigations. Graphne still answers questions. See Full-Auto Execution.
Stop a running task
Role: Admin
- Open Admin > AI Provider > Safety.
- Find the task in Running AI work. The table lists What, Type, Started by and Running for.
- Select Stop and confirm in the "Stop this task?" dialog.
Work that started automatically shows Automatic under Started by. Hover it to see what started it. Results gathered so far are kept. With nothing running, the table says "No AI work is running."
Choose which Graphne tools are available
Role: Admin
- Open Admin > AI Provider > Safety and find Tool access.
- Hover a tool name to read what it does.
- Switch Available off to hide the tool from Graphne for everyone.
- Under Who can use it, choose Operators and admins or Admins only.
- Select Save changes.
A Changed badge marks each tool that differs from its default. Reset to defaults puts every tool back to its default in the table. Select Save changes to keep that.
If another Admin saved first, your save is refused with "Couldn't save tool access". The table then reloads with their settings. Make your change again.
A change applies to new questions. Graphne never sees a tool that's off, and a tool set to Admins only is hidden from Operators.
See what each AI agent can do
Role: Admin
- Open Admin > AI Provider > Safety and find Agent identities. It's the fourth card.
- Read the status line. A Verified badge means the read-only database account was checked when the server started. The line shows the account name and when it was verified.
- Read the table. It has one row per agent: Graphne, Query writer, Alert triage, Investigation, Remediation, Access planner and Proactive monitor.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Agent | The agent's name |
| Database access | Read-only account if it reads through the account above, otherwise None |
| Writes through | Server, Select Fire™ gateway, or both. Nothing if it writes nothing. |
| Writes to | What it saves, for example Chat history, Triage records, Investigation reports or Notifications. Nothing if none. |
| What it can do | A short description of the agent's work |
The table is read-only. Use it to confirm that no agent can change your directory data directly.
If a model-written query hits the account's limits, Graphne tells you why:
| Graphne says | Cause |
|---|---|
| That query needed more memory than Graphne may use. Ask about a smaller set, for example one domain. | The query went over its memory limit. |
| That query reached data Graphne can't read. | The read-only account refused the query. |
Set the hard spending ceiling
Role: Admin
- Open Admin > AI Provider > Cost.
- Enter Hard spending ceiling (USD per month). Leave it empty to use 1.5 times the monthly budget.
- Select Save budget.
The ceiling can't be lower than the monthly budget. The field then shows "The hard ceiling can't be lower than the monthly budget." A meter shows this month's spend against the budget and the ceiling.
When spend reaches the ceiling, every AI call stops, chat and alert triage included. Graphne says "Graphne reached this month's AI spending ceiling. An admin can raise it in AI settings." Triage falls back to its deterministic assessment. AI resumes next month (UTC), or when you raise the ceiling.
The monthly budget alone pauses only some tasks. See Setting a Monthly Budget.
Configuration
| Setting | Where | Default |
|---|---|---|
| AI on or off | Safety tab, AI availability | On |
| Tool availability and role | Safety tab, Tool access | Each tool's default |
| Agent identities | Safety tab, Agent identities | Read-only. Nothing to set. |
| Hard spending ceiling | Cost tab | 1.5 times the monthly budget. None if there's no budget. |
Rate limits per person:
| Action | Limit |
|---|---|
| Graphne questions | 10 a minute |
| Starting investigations | 5 a minute |
Past a limit, the request is refused until the minute passes.
Troubleshooting
Stop is missing on an investigation
Only the person who started it and Admins see Stop. It also shows only while the report is In progress.
"Couldn't stop this investigation. It may have finished already."
The run ended before the request arrived. Refresh the page.
Graphne says it reached the spending ceiling
Raise Hard spending ceiling on the Cost tab, or wait for next month.
Start investigation is disabled
Hover it. "AI is turned off." means an Admin turned AI off. "Automation is stopped, so investigations can't start." means the kill switch is on.
A tool is missing from Graphne's answers
An Admin may have turned it off, or set it to Admins only. Check Tool access on the Safety tab.
The server won't start and mentions the read-only agent account
The server creates the account each time it starts and won't run without it. Ask your GraphnAI administrator to check that the server connects to its database with a user that can manage accounts, then restart.
Graphne says a query needed too much memory
Ask about a smaller set, for example one domain.
Graphne says a query reached data it can't read
The read-only account refused the query. Graphne reads only the data it needs, so ask about something else.