Rule Playground¶

The Rule Playground provides a dedicated debugging endpoint for testing how rules evaluate against a synthetic action, without executing any side effects. Unlike dry-run mode (which uses the full dispatch pipeline), the playground focuses exclusively on rule evaluation and returns a detailed per-rule trace.

Admin UI¶

The Rule Playground is available in the Admin UI sidebar. Fill in the action fields on the left, click Evaluate, and inspect the per-rule trace on the right.

Enable Evaluate All Rules and Include Disabled Rules to see every rule in the trace, including disabled and skipped rules:

When the matched rule is a Modify action, the modified payload preview appears at the bottom of the results panel:

API Endpoint¶

POST /v1/rules/evaluate

Request Body¶

Response¶

Each trace entry contains:

Key Features¶

Evaluate All Rules¶

By default, rule evaluation stops at the first match. Set evaluate_all: true to force evaluation of every rule, which is useful for understanding the full rule set's behavior:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/v1/rules/evaluate \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "namespace": "default",
    "tenant": "acme",
    "provider": "email",
    "action_type": "notification",
    "payload": {"to": "user@example.com"},
    "evaluate_all": true
  }'

Time-Travel Debugging¶

Override the evaluation clock to test time-sensitive rules (maintenance windows, weekday restrictions, etc.):

{
  "namespace": "default",
  "tenant": "acme",
  "provider": "email",
  "action_type": "notification",
  "payload": {},
  "evaluate_at": "2026-03-15T03:00:00Z"
}

Mock State¶

Override state keys to test state-dependent conditions without mutating real state:

{
  "namespace": "default",
  "tenant": "acme",
  "provider": "email",
  "action_type": "notification",
  "payload": {},
  "mock_state": {
    "alert_count": "5",
    "last_notified": "2026-02-12T10:00:00Z"
  }
}

Error Visibility¶

When a rule condition errors during evaluation, the verdict is set to "error" and has_errors is true. The failing rule's trace entry contains the error message. This matches production behavior where errors before the first match cause the engine to abort.

Modify Payload Preview¶

When the matched rule is a Modify action, the response includes modified_payload showing the result of applying the JSON merge patch to the input payload.

Default Fallthrough¶

When no rules match, a synthetic (default fallthrough) trace entry is appended, making it explicit that the allow verdict came from no rule matching rather than a specific rule.

Client SDK Usage¶

Rust¶

use acteon_client::{ActeonClient, EvaluateRulesOptions};
use acteon_core::Action;

let client = ActeonClient::new("http://localhost:8080");
let action = Action::new("ns", "tenant", "email", "send", serde_json::json!({}));

let trace = client.evaluate_rules(&action, &EvaluateRulesOptions {
    evaluate_all: true,
    ..Default::default()
}).await?;

println!("Verdict: {}", trace.verdict);
for entry in &trace.trace {
    println!("  {} -> {}", entry.rule_name, entry.result);
}

Python¶

from acteon_client import ActeonClient, EvaluateRulesRequest

client = ActeonClient("http://localhost:8080")
result = client.evaluate_rules(EvaluateRulesRequest(
    namespace="ns",
    tenant="tenant",
    provider="email",
    action_type="send",
    payload={},
    evaluate_all=True,
))

print(f"Verdict: {result.verdict}")
for entry in result.trace:
    print(f"  {entry.rule_name} -> {entry.result}")

Node.js / TypeScript¶

const result = await client.evaluateRules({
  namespace: "ns",
  tenant: "tenant",
  provider: "email",
  action_type: "send",
  payload: {},
  evaluate_all: true,
});

console.log(`Verdict: ${result.verdict}`);
result.trace.forEach(e => console.log(`  ${e.rule_name} -> ${e.result}`));

Go¶

resp, err := client.EvaluateRules(ctx, acteon.EvaluateRulesRequest{
    Namespace:   "ns",
    Tenant:      "tenant",
    Provider:    "email",
    ActionType:  "send",
    Payload:     map[string]interface{}{},
    EvaluateAll: true,
})
fmt.Println("Verdict:", resp.Verdict)

Java¶

EvaluateRulesResponse resp = client.evaluateRules(
    new EvaluateRulesRequest("ns", "tenant", "email", "send", Map.of())
        .evaluateAll(true)
);
System.out.println("Verdict: " + resp.getVerdict());

Security Notes¶

• Environment variable keys are filtered to omit names containing SECRET, PASSWORD, TOKEN, CREDENTIAL, or PRIVATE_KEY (and names ending in _KEY). Values are never exposed.
• The endpoint is read-only: no state mutations, no provider calls, no audit records.
• Authentication and authorization apply as with any protected endpoint.