| name | symbol |
| description | In D&D, Symbol inscribes a powerful glyph with a predefined effect — death, fear, sleep, stunning — that triggers when conditions are met. Unlike Glyph of Warding (which protects a specific place or object), Symbol marks a conceptual boundary with a named policy. The real-world version is semantic policy tagging: marking a database column as PII so access triggers audit logging, tagging a deployment as HIPAA-scoped so changes require compliance review, or labeling an API endpoint as rate-limited-aggressive so traffic spikes trigger automatic throttling. The symbol is the policy, and the policy enforces itself. |
| version | 1.0.0 |
| author | Wizards of the Ghosts |
| license | CC0-1.0 |
| compatibility | Hermes Agent skills system |
| metadata | {"hermes":{"tags":["spell","shipping-now","literal","monitoring-and-protection","observability","monitoring","guardrails","privacy"]}} |
Symbol
Mark a resource with a named sigil that triggers automatic policy enforcement when conditions are met.
What This Skill Does
In D&D, Symbol inscribes a powerful glyph with a predefined effect — death, fear, sleep, stunning — that triggers when conditions are met. Unlike Glyph of Warding (which protects a specific place or object), Symbol marks a conceptual boundary with a named policy. The real-world version is semantic policy tagging: marking a database column as PII so access triggers audit logging, tagging a deployment as HIPAA-scoped so changes require compliance review, or labeling an API endpoint as rate-limited-aggressive so traffic spikes trigger automatic throttling. The symbol is the policy, and the policy enforces itself.
In this grimoire, Symbol is treated as a literal spell with a shipping-now delivery profile.
Canonical reference input: Symbol (spell).
When To Use
- A resource, role, or state needs a machine-readable tag that carries enforcement with it wherever it appears.
- Audit logging, throttling, approval gates, or compliance review should trigger automatically from classification.
- You need a named policy marker that expresses semantic scope, not just a location-bound tripwire.
Prerequisites
- No extra runtime dependencies beyond Hermes Agent and the normal toolset for this session.
Procedure
- Restate the target, the success condition, and any no-touch boundaries before taking action.
- Identify the resource, role, or state to mark and the policy the symbol should represent.
- Define the trigger conditions, enforcement actions, owner, and scope of the symbol.
- Apply the symbol as a machine-readable tag or classification that downstream systems can detect.
- Test visibility and precedence against existing policies so the sigil is legible and deterministic.
- Return the symbol definition, enforcement paths, and failure modes.
- Stop for explicit confirmation before taking a live action that changes access, triggers an alert, or touches a real system boundary.
- Package the result as the deliverables below, with confidence, assumptions, and unresolved risk called out explicitly.
Deliverables
- A named policy symbol with scope, owner, and machine-readable definition.
- Trigger conditions and automatic enforcement actions.
- A precedence and visibility note covering conflicts, auditability, and blind spots.
Pitfalls / Guardrails
- Treat the live action surface as real operational work, not decorative lore.
- Symbols must be visible to the people they constrain. Hidden policy enforcement without disclosure is a trap, not a safeguard.
