Commerce Gate

Commerce Gate documentation

Commerce Gate terminology

Commerce Gate uses different words for a policy check, a platform stopping an action, a person approving it and the action that finally reaches your platform. This glossary defines those words and the outcomes you see in your dashboard. Read it next to the capability matrix to see which apply to a given platform and action.

Maintained by Decionis. Reviewed .

Governed decision

A commerce action checked against a policy. In the public figures, governed decisions are all ledger evaluations to date across Decionis; in pricing, a governed action is one checked action while enforcement is on. They count different things, and neither is necessarily a completed order.

Shadow Mode

Checking against your policy without stopping anything. A Shadow decision shows how the facts compare with your policy; it does not show that a loss was prevented, and it is not a sample-data mode.

Enforcement Mode

A control you turned on applies the decision at a listed platform step, such as checkout or order acknowledgment, and only there. A plan or a connected store does not make every action stoppable.

PROCEED, HOLD, ESCALATE and BLOCK

These are the outcomes in your dashboard. PROCEED lets the listed step go ahead, HOLD pauses it for review, ESCALATE sends it to a named approver and BLOCK rejects it. Each platform applies them through its own control.

A go-ahead is evidence that the policy allowed the action, not your consent to carry it out. The MCP and the Business Central guard use their own outcome words, listed on the MCP page.

Decision Dossier and proof packet

A Decision Dossier records a policy decision where the platform provides one, and a proof packet gathers the evidence for review. A valid signature proves the record, not that the facts were right or that the action completed. Missing or partial evidence stays marked that way.

Adaptive human verification

The step that confirms the approver is present, and who they are, for a pending request. Commerce Gate uses Presence for this where supported. The method depends on your setup, and confirming the person is separate from their approval.

Evaluation-only action

An action Commerce Gate checks but does not send to the platform. The repricer, ERP, workflow or agent that asked must honor the answer and have the authority to act. Walmart price and stock changes are examples.

Native enforcement

A control at a platform's own decision point, such as a Shopify Function or Business Central release. It covers one action, with its permissions, settings and release status, not every action on that platform.

Goes through during an outage (fail-open)

The action continues when Commerce Gate cannot be reached. That is outage behavior, not a policy approval. Walmart order acknowledgments and Adobe Commerce checkout work this way; other controls have their own settings or fallback limits.

Stops during an outage (fail-closed)

The action stops when a required check cannot be completed. Shopify checkout rules work this way by default, and you can change each rule. An AI agent that gets no answer must wait and never go around the check. Business Central has one company-wide choice, and documents go through unless you change it.

Questions and answers

Is a governed decision always billable?

No. The public figures count recorded evaluations. Billing counts governed actions while enforcement is on, and leaves out Shadow Mode and the Walmart ship and cancel actions your operator confirms.

Is a hold the same as an escalation?

Not always. Your dashboard tells a hold for review apart from an escalation to a named approver, while the MCP reports both as a hold. Go by the outcome words of the tool you use.