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Overrides are AtlaSent’s formal break-glass mechanism. They exist because regulated environments sometimes have legitimate emergencies (for example, a patient safety event) where the policy’s deny is wrong in the specific moment. Overrides are:
  • Authorized by role. Only users with the approver or admin role can issue one.
  • Time-boxed. Default TTL: 5 minutes. Configurable per org.
  • Reason-required. Free text, stored in the audit chain alongside the override.
  • Attributed. The human who authorized the override is named in the audit chain.
  • Counted. The console surfaces override frequency per policy — an override that fires every day is a policy that needs rewriting.

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Shape

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Not a bypass

An override does not silence the audit chain. The chain records both:
  1. The original deny decision from policy evaluation.
  2. The override that superseded it, with the human’s identity and reason.
An inspector can always reconstruct: “policy said no → human Sarah said yes at 14:07 for reason X → action executed.”

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When not to use

If you find your team issuing overrides regularly for the same action class, that’s a sign the policy is wrong — rewrite the rule and version the policy, don’t override your way through it.