Shipping to Production
Guardrails
9 min+100 XPStep 1/11
The model is the last line, never the only one
Given enough traffic, the model will eventually say something wrong, leak something, or get talked into something. Guardrails are the layers outside the model that catch what it can't: input filters, output validators, permission scoping, human checkpoints.
The principle is defense in depth — no single layer, including the model's own training, is trusted to hold alone.