Time-of-Day Gating Policy

The time-of-day-gating policy enforces window-of-allowed-use rules per agent / workflow. "Don't let the loan-decision agent fire after 6pm" is a common control in regulated workflows (financial services, healthcare staffing, retail fulfillment after market hours). Compared to scheduling, this handler supports multiple windows per policy, overnight windows that span midnight, mid-execution enforcement, and workflow-type exemptions.

Maps to SOX §404 IT general controls (segregation of access by time), ISO 27001 A.9.4 (information access restriction), and HIPAA §164.312(a)(1) (access control).

Rules

Rule	Type	Default	Description
allowed_windows	object[]	[]	List of windows. Each: {"days": ["mon","tue",...], "start": "HH:MM", "end": "HH:MM"}. Empty list = no restriction (no-op)
timezone	string	""	IANA tz name (America/Chicago, Europe/Berlin). Empty = UTC
applies_to_phase	string[]	["before_workflow"]	Which phases to enforce in. Values: before_workflow, mid_execution
exempt_workflow_types	string[]	[]	Workflow types exempt from the gate (e.g. ["administrative"])
action_on_violation	string	"block"	Either block or warn

Day names are lowercase 3-letter abbreviations: mon, tue, wed, thu, fri, sat, sun. Omitting days on a window means all 7 days.

How It Works

The time-of-day-gating handler runs at the phases listed in applies_to_phase. It supports both before_workflow and mid_execution gates.

Phase	What It Checks	Actions
before_workflow	If applies_to_phase includes before_workflow, checks current tz-aware time against all allowed_windows	BLOCK or WARN per action_on_violation
mid_execution	If applies_to_phase includes mid_execution, same check (useful for long-running workflows)	BLOCK or WARN
after_workflow	No-op (ALLOW) -- time-of-day is a gate, not an audit signal	ALLOW

A run is allowed if any window matches. Windows where start <= end are same-day ranges (09:00-18:00). Windows where start > end are overnight (22:00-06:00 means 22:00 today through 06:00 tomorrow).

Context Attributes Read

Attribute	Phase	Purpose
context.workflow_type / context.workflow_kind	both	Match against exempt_workflow_types

The handler is otherwise time-only -- no input scanning or state inspection.

Example Policy

{
  "name": "Loan Agent Business Hours",
  "category": "time-of-day-gating",
  "rules": {
    "allowed_windows": [
      {"days": ["mon", "tue", "wed", "thu", "fri"], "start": "09:00", "end": "18:00"}
    ],
    "timezone": "America/Chicago",
    "applies_to_phase": ["before_workflow", "mid_execution"],
    "exempt_workflow_types": ["administrative", "monthly-close"],
    "action_on_violation": "block"
  },
  "scope": {"agents": ["loan-decision-agent"]},
  "enabled": true
}

Overnight Window (Night-Shift Healthcare Staffing)

{
  "name": "Night Shift Window",
  "category": "time-of-day-gating",
  "rules": {
    "allowed_windows": [
      {"days": ["mon", "tue", "wed", "thu", "fri", "sat", "sun"],
       "start": "22:00", "end": "06:00"}
    ],
    "timezone": "America/New_York",
    "action_on_violation": "block"
  }
}

SDK Integration

import waxell_observe as waxell
waxell.init()

@waxell.observe(
    agent_name="loan-decision-agent",
    workflow_type="decision",
    enforce_policy=True,
)
async def decide_loan(application_id: str) -> str:
    # before_workflow: blocks if outside 9am-6pm America/Chicago
    # mid_execution: re-checks every LLM/tool call (long-running runs
    # get cut off when business hours end)
    return await score_application(application_id)

Observability

Field	Example
Category	time-of-day-gating
Action	block
Reason	"Run attempted at 2026-05-28T19:42-05:00 (thu); outside all configured allowed windows."
Metadata	{"phase": "before_workflow", "signal": "outside_allowed_window", "now": "2026-05-28T19:42-05:00", "day": "thu", "iso_27001": "A.9.4", "sox": "404", "hipaa": "164.312(a)(1)"}

Common Gotchas

1. Empty allowed_windows is a no-op ALLOW. The handler exits early when no windows are configured -- this is intentional so disabling is one rule away, but means a typo-empty array silently disables enforcement.
2. Day abbreviations are lowercase 3-letter. "Mon" or "monday" will not match. The handler does compare case-insensitively against the canonical set, but "weekdays" is not understood.
3. Invalid timezone falls back to UTC silently. Like scheduling, an unparseable IANA name logs a debug message and uses UTC.
4. mid_execution enforcement requires opt-in. Default applies_to_phase is ["before_workflow"] only -- a workflow started at 5:55pm will run to completion even if it crosses 6pm. Add mid_execution to the list to kill long-running runs at the boundary.
5. exempt_workflow_types is case-insensitive. "Administrative" and "administrative" both match. But it checks context.workflow_type OR context.workflow_kind -- if your runtime only sets workflow_name, the exemption never fires.
6. Overnight windows wrap UTC midnight, not local midnight, when tz is empty. A 22:00-06:00 window with no timezone is evaluated against UTC. For New-York-overnight semantics, set timezone: "America/New_York".
7. short_circuit_on_block = True. When this handler blocks, other handlers in the chain are skipped. Useful for time-as-master-gate; surprising if you expected a downstream policy to also evaluate.

Next Steps

• Scheduling Policy -- Simpler single-window variant with blackout dates and maintenance windows
• Approval Policy -- Require human override outside hours instead of hard-blocking
• Compliance Policy -- Bundle time-of-day with PII, audit, and other controls per framework
• Policy Categories