Kill Switches

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title: "Kill Switches" tier: "3" status: "verified" version: "1.2.0" last-verified: "2026-06-17" commit: "b1c347b1" network-badge: "none" risk-tags:

• "RISK: HIGH"
• "RISK: DESTRUCTIVE"

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🛑 Kill Switches

Caution

This page documents emergency intervention controls that immediately halt agent execution or terminate the engine process. Use these controls only when standard oversight mechanisms are insufficient.

These controls are reachable in ≤ 2 clicks from the Sidebar (Tier 3 → Kill-Switches).

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1. Emergency Controls

1.1 Halt Agents (kill_agents)

Immediately halts all active agent thinking and execution loops and rejects pending oversight requests.

Property	Value
Backend Handler	kill_agents (engine_control.rs:L34)
Frontend Hook	handle_kill_switch (useOversightDashboard.ts:L153)
API Endpoint	POST /v1/engine/kill
Dashboard Button Path	Oversight dashboard → header panel → [Button] Halt Agents

[Button] Halt Agents

• Default state: Enabled/Online.
• Visible location: Oversight dashboard header panel.
• Observable side effect: Prompts the user with confirm_halt_agents dialog, then halts all active agent thinking loops by sending thread abort signals via the handle_kill_switch handler.
• Keyboard shortcut: None.
• Missing in build: Always present.

CLI Command:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/v1/engine/kill -H "Authorization: Bearer $NEURAL_TOKEN"

Caution

This immediately aborts all running agent tasks. In-progress work may be lost. Use the Oversight Queue's individual Reject buttons for targeted intervention first.

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1.2 Kill Engine (shutdown_engine)

Gracefully terminates the Axum service process, persisting all live agent states to the database before exit.

Property	Value
Backend Handler	shutdown_engine (engine_control.rs:L91)
Frontend Hook	handle_kill_engine (useOversightDashboard.ts:L169)
API Endpoint	POST /v1/engine/shutdown
Dashboard Button Path	Oversight dashboard → header panel → [Button] Kill Engine

[Button] Kill Engine

• Default state: Enabled/Online.
• Visible location: Oversight dashboard header panel.
• Observable side effect: Prompts the user with confirm_kill_engine verification, demands typing the uppercase word "SHUTDOWN" in the text input (useOversightDashboard.ts:L172-173), and then terminates the Axum service process via the shutdown_engine handler.
• Keyboard shortcut: None.
• Missing in build: Always present.

CLI Command:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/v1/engine/shutdown -H "Authorization: Bearer $NEURAL_TOKEN"

Caution

This terminates the entire backend process. The dashboard will lose connection and show 🔴 OFFLINE. Restart the engine manually with cargo run --release.

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2. Decision Matrix: Which Control to Use

Scenario	Recommended Control	Reason
Single agent misbehaving	[Button] Reject in Oversight Queue	Targeted, non-destructive
Multiple agents out of control	[Button] Halt Agents (handle_kill_switch)	Stops all agents, preserves engine
Engine unresponsive or security breach	[Button] Kill Engine (handle_kill_engine)	Full process termination
Budget overspend detected	Budget Guard auto-halts	Automatic via BudgetExhausted error

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3. Circuit Breaker (Client-Side)

In addition to server-side kill switches, the frontend implements a Glossary#circuit-breaker system that automatically protects the dashboard:

3.1 Breaker States

State	Behavior
CLOSED	Normal operation. All API requests pass through.
OPEN	Triggered after VITE_SYSTEM_BREAKER_FAILURE_THRESHOLD [RISK: HIGH] (default: 5) consecutive failures. Further calls are instantly rejected with CircuitBreakerOpenError.
HALF_OPEN	After VITE_SYSTEM_BREAKER_COOLDOWN_MS [RISK: HIGH] (default: 10000 ms) cooldown, a single probe request tests backend health. Two successes reset to CLOSED; one failure trips back to OPEN.

3.2 Log Observability

• 📡 [Circuit Breaker] NAMESPACE entered HALF_OPEN probe state — Cooldown expired; probing service.
• ❌ [Circuit Breaker] NAMESPACE tripped back to OPEN from HALF_OPEN due to trial failure — Service still down.

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4. Local-First Pledge

Important

100% Local-First / Zero Data Leaks.

• All emergency controls are executed locally. No telemetry or execution signals are transmitted outside the local network.
• The shutdown controls and state persistence checks are processed entirely on your local machine.

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→ See Approvals-&-Quotas for standard oversight controls. → See Network-Boundaries and Network-Boundaries for CORS and proxy configuration. → See Configuration for network and breaker environment variables.

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Complete Lexicon: For the authoritative technical breakdown, see the main repository GLOSSARY.md. Every [[Glossary#term|term]] link on this page resolves to an entry there.