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human-only

A deny rule by default: it refuses a magus run reaching a human_only target: the person is asked, a leased worker refused, and names what to run instead.

What it catches

A magus run reaching a human_only target: the person is asked, a leased worker refused.

Why

Some targets cost what only a person may decide to spend: a benchmark against a paid model API, a suite that drives real hosts on real logins. This is the human in the loop for cost. A magusfile marks one with human_only and a reason saying what a run costs. Each magus run and magus affected on the line is expanded the way the engine would run it: over the projects it names, or every project for affected or a run naming none, and down each target's ctx.needs chain. A run naming a human-only target itself, from a session no job lease binds, gets the verdict ask: the host's own approval prompt shows the reason, the target's recorded p75 and run count and whether it is cached, and approving runs it once. A hook that cannot put an ask in front of the person refuses instead. A leased worker is refused and nobody is asked: workers do not spend for the orchestrator. A run that reaches one through another target's chain is refused for everyone, naming each human-only target it reaches: a run reporting green over work it skipped is a pass the push gate would trust. A command magus itself suggested is judged too, since the person, not the suggestion, owns the cost. A person's own terminal never meets the guard, so nothing changes there. Set to advise, the reason is told and the run proceeds.

Default and override

By default this rule takes the decision deny. A workspace sets it by name, in its root magusfile, to deny, advise or off:

magus\guard.builtins({"human-only": "advise"})

A loosening takes effect once it is committed; a tightening applies at once.

Seeing it

A verdict names its rule in brackets, which is how you got here:

deny [human-only]: ...

A workspace that sets this rule to advise sees advise [human-only]: ... instead.

magus describe rule human-only prints the same entry at a terminal, and magus describe rules lists every rule this workspace enforces.

See also

ReferencePages in this section. The Go SDKUse magus as a Go library instead of the CLI (Open vs Inspect, the interface hierarchy, the List/Evaluate/Classify axis, ctx and cancellation, testing code that uses the SDK, and what the SDK does not give you yet). magus-multi-agentLoad BEFORE your first subagent spawn in a magus workspace: an Agent or Task tool call, a background worker, parallel workers, fanning out, or delegating part of a task. magus-sdkHelp a Go developer consume magus as a library (import "github.com/egladman/magus") instead of shelling out to the CLI, and audit whether the SDK actually serves them.
guardruleshuman-onlydeny
Last updated (29d8b3de)
Glossary

Workspace

The magus root directory that owns a set of projects and shared config; the unit magus operates over. Workspace in full.

Project

A directory magus recognizes as a unit of work (it has a magusfile); the unit of caching, scheduling, and dependency tracking. Project in full.

Magusfile

The magusfile.buzz that declares a project's targets (as export funs) and binds its spells. Magusfile in full.

Target

A named operation (build, test, ...) you invoke with magus run <target>; it may compose a spell's tool-native operations and depend on other targets. Target in full.

Op

A single tool-native command a target composes (long form: operation); the middle of the work hierarchy (Spell to Op to Target). Op in full.

Buzz

The language magusfiles are written in (the .buzz engine). Buzz in full.

Engine

The interpreter a magusfile runs on; magus embeds the Buzz engine. Engine in full.

Cache

The content-addressed store magus consults before running a target, so unchanged work is skipped. Cache in full.

Affected

The set of projects touched by a change; magus affected <target> runs a target only over them. Affected in full.

CI

An ordinary target you compose yourself with ctx.needs; magus does not hardcode its stages. It is the anchor magus affected ci keys off, and ci strips the rw charm. CI in full.

Agent

A model working through an agent host such as Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or OpenCode. magus treats an agent as one more caller of its CLI, MCP tools and console, held to the same checks as a person. Agent in full.

Session

An agent host's conversation, by the id the host delivers to its hooks. magus never mints one: a record with no session is unattributed, and the OS user it carries says whose account ran it. Session in full.

Job

The unit of delegated work, and one row of the job store: what an orchestrating agent handed out, with its goal, the checkpoint it was cut against, the paths it may write or must not touch, and the one check it runs. A job's holder is either a session, for work an orchestrator handed out, or the daemon, for its own maintenance. The store records; the agent guard is what reads those facts back when grading a write. Job in full.

Run

One target executing under one magus invocation, such as magus run test web or magus affected ci. A run keeps its captured output behind an output reference. Every magus run is a run whether or not any job asked for it; see Job for how the two relate. Run in full.

Lease

The grant a holder takes on a job: the write and read paths that job declared, enforced in the checkout that took it with magus job exec. A job is the piece of work; a lease is permission over it. Lease in full.

Conventions

This page uses none of the site's convention markers. The full set is on the conventions page.