Enum Effect 

pub enum Effect {
    Allow,
    Deny {
        reason: Option<String>,
        code: Option<String>,
    },
    Plugin {
        name: String,
    },
    Delegate(DelegateStep),
    Elicit(ElicitStep),
    Taint {
        label: String,
        scopes: Vec<TaintScope>,
    },
    FieldOp {
        path: String,
        stages: Vec<Stage>,
    },
    Sequential(Vec<Effect>),
    Parallel(Vec<Effect>),
    When {
        condition: Expression,
        body: Vec<Effect>,
        source: String,
    },
    Pdp {
        call: PdpCall,
        on_allow: Vec<Effect>,
        on_deny: Vec<Effect>,
    },
}

One thing a matching rule does. Mirrors DSL spec §3 effect classes:

• Control — Allow, Deny
• Label — Taint
• Host — Plugin, Delegate

Content effects (redact, mask, omit, hash) and orchestration (Sequential, Parallel) land in later slices (E2 / E3).

PDP calls (cedar:(…), opa(…), …) remain top-level Step variants for now; folding them into Effect is an E4 cleanup.

Inside a Vec<Effect> (a rule’s effects body)

• Allow is a no-op — lets evaluation continue to the next effect in the list, then to the next step in policy:.
• Deny short-circuits the rest of the list, the rest of the policy: block, and the route. The reason propagates into the violation message.
• Plugin / Delegate dispatch identically to their top-level Step counterparts (same invoker traits).
• Taint accumulates into the phase’s taint events.

Variants

Allow

Deny

Fields

reason: Option<String>

code: Option<String>

Author-supplied stable violation code. When Some, it overrides the rule’s auto-generated source-position code (routes.tool:X.apl.policy[N]) downstream. Useful when MCP clients want to dispatch on category (quota.exceeded, delegation.depth_exceeded) rather than position, or when multiple routes share a deny category that should aggregate consistently in audit dashboards. When None, the evaluator falls back to rule.source as the code — matches the historical behavior.

Parser shape: deny('reason', 'code') (two positional arguments) or the structured deny: { reason: ..., code: ... } map form.

Plugin

Fields

name: String

Delegate(DelegateStep)

Elicit(ElicitStep)

Elicitation effect — dispatch a question to a human (approval, confirmation, step-up, …) through a channel plugin, hold pending state across the agent’s retries, validate the response, resume. The elicitation analogue of Delegate. See docs/apl-manager-approval-ciba-design.md and crate::step::ElicitStep.

Taint

Fields

label: String

scopes: Vec<TaintScope>

FieldOp

Content effect (DSL §3) — apply a pipe chain (redact, mask, omit, hash, validators, transforms) to a field in the route’s args or result. The author writes result.salary | redact inside a do: body; the parser splits the dotted path from the pipeline.

path must start with args. or result. — the evaluator dispatches the lookup against RoutePayload.args or RoutePayload.result. A FieldOp inside a Pre-phase route’s do: that targets result.X is a no-op (the result hasn’t been produced yet); same goes for a Post-phase rule that targets args.X (the args are already on the wire). The evaluator silently skips out-of-phase ops so the same when:/do: shape can describe both phases without branching.

Fields

path: String

stages: Vec<Stage>

Sequential(Vec<Effect>)

Run a list of effects in declaration order, stopping on the first Deny. Semantically equivalent to inlining the list into the enclosing scope; the variant exists to make grouping explicit and to pair with Parallel.

Parallel(Vec<Effect>)

Run a list of effects concurrently. Any Deny → overall Deny. Taints from all branches accumulate. Bag and payload mutations inside parallel branches are discarded when the branch completes — each branch gets a clone of the state, never the shared mutable original. Plugins inside Parallel can still emit taints (those merge); any other mutation they try to make (bag writes, args/result rewrites) vanishes.

Config-load rejects FieldOp and Delegate directly inside Parallel (recursively), since both would silently drop their effect. The escape valve is Sequential.

When

Predicate-gated body. body runs in order when condition evaluates to true; any Deny in the body halts the surrounding phase. Replaces the historical Step::Rule(Rule) shape — when: / do: directly desugars to this. A bare require(X) or deny(X) shorthand compiles to When { condition: X, body: vec![Effect::Allow / Deny] }.

source is the human-readable origin (e.g. "routes.X.policy[2]") surfaced in Decision::Deny.rule_source when the body denies without supplying its own code.

Fields

condition: Expression

body: Vec<Effect>

source: String

Pdp

External PDP call. on_allow / on_deny are reaction effect lists fired against the PDP’s decision (DSL §7.5). Replaces Step::Pdp { ... } — args-shape stays identical.

Fields

call: PdpCall

on_allow: Vec<Effect>

on_deny: Vec<Effect>

Implementations

impl Effect

pub fn contains_mutation(&self) -> bool

Walk this effect (and any nested effects) checking whether any node would mutate route state. Used by the config-load validator to reject FieldOp / Delegate inside Parallel since both would silently drop their effect in a discarded branch.

pub fn validate_parallel_purity(&self) -> Result<(), String>

Walk the effect tree rejecting any FieldOp / Delegate that lives directly or transitively under a Parallel node. Returns the path string of the first violation found (or Ok(()) if the tree is clean). Run at config-load.

Trait Implementations

impl Clone for Effect

fn clone(&self) -> Effect

Returns a duplicate of the value.

fn clone_from(&mut self, source: &Self)

Performs copy-assignment from source.

impl Debug for Effect

fn fmt(&self, f: &mut Formatter<'_>) -> Result

Formats the value using the given formatter.

impl<'de> Deserialize<'de> for Effect

fn deserialize<__D>(__deserializer: __D) -> Result<Self, __D::Error>

where __D: Deserializer<'de>,

Deserialize this value from the given Serde deserializer.

impl From<Rule> for Effect

Rule is structurally identical to Effect::When. The From impl lets callers that already hold a Rule (notably the parser’s inner helpers and the test fixtures) drop a .into() instead of re-spelling all three fields. Bridges the few remaining producers while the migration completes; will probably stay long-term because the parser still builds Rule incrementally before deciding it’s an Effect::When.

fn from(r: Rule) -> Effect

Converts to this type from the input type.

impl PartialEq for Effect

fn eq(&self, other: &Effect) -> bool

Equality operator ==.

fn ne(&self, other: &Rhs) -> bool

Inequality operator !=.

impl Serialize for Effect

fn serialize<__S>(&self, __serializer: __S) -> Result<__S::Ok, __S::Error>

where __S: Serializer,

Serialize this value into the given Serde serializer.

impl StructuralPartialEq for Effect