What is an AI agent kill switch (halt)?
A halt is one switch that stops every agent in an environment from acting, including calls that were already approved. What it stops, what keeps working, and what it cannot recall.
A halt, or kill switch, stops every AI agent in an environment from acting at the point where actions are sent, including calls already approved, while what you send keeps queuing so nothing in flight is lost.
Why stop at dispatch, not at the agent?
An agent can run in many processes, sessions and frameworks. Stopping each one takes time you do not have during a runaway refund loop. When every consequential call passes through one place that makes it, one switch there stops them all, without a redeploy and without finding every worker.
What does a halt stop, and what keeps working?
| Stopped | Still working |
|---|---|
| New action invocations, recorded as blocked | Accepting what you send: it is held, not lost |
| Approval-gated resumes, so an already-approved call does not run | Deciding approvals, including denying the ones that piled up |
| Replays of a governed effect | Every read, so an agent can drain what it already has |
| Anything leaving the environment | Reconcile, notes and resolve on outcomes, and resume |
When you resume, deferred work is released and picks up where it left off.
Example
A support agent starts refunding every open ticket. The on-call engineer runs one line from the runbook.
import { Client } from '@anlyonhq/sdk';
// An operator key holding `environments:halt`, not your agent's key.
const operator = new Client({ apiKey: process.env.ANLYON_OPERATOR_KEY! });
await operator.environment.halt({ reason: 'runaway refund loop' });
// ...and when the incident is over:
await operator.environment.resume();
The refund that Stripe had already accepted stays issued. The next one is blocked before it is sent. A refund waiting on approval stays parked, and an approver can deny it while the environment is halted.
What a halt cannot do
- It does not recall a request an external server already accepted. It stops new dispatch after the halt check.
- It does not undo effects. Rolling back an action version does not undo them either. A refund that ran needs its own compensating action.
- It covers one environment. The API halts the calling key's own environment. A staging key can halt staging and cannot reach production.
- It covers calls routed through Anlyon. A tool your own code calls directly is not routed through Anlyon and is not governed by it.
If the halt state cannot be read at all, the check reports halted. An outage is when you are most likely to reach for the switch.
Related terms
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Frequently asked questions
What does halting an Anlyon environment stop?
Halting stops the agent acting and stops anything leaving the environment; what you send still queues, so nothing is lost. Action invocations are blocked, including approval-gated resumes, so an already-approved call does not run. It stops new dispatch after the halt check. A request an external server already accepted is not recalled.
Can the agent's own key turn the halt off?
Halt and resume need the environments:halt scope, which is not granted by default. Put an operator key holding it behind your runbook, not in the agent.