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Kill Switch

Reviewed 19 July 2026Canonical definitionPart of: Runtime Control & Guardrail Terms →

An emergency mechanism that immediately terminates an agent's access and halts its operations. Essential for incident response when an agent exhibits anomalous or dangerous behavior.

§01 / QUESTIONSterm: Kill Switch
Questions

Common questions.

What is Kill Switch?

An emergency mechanism that immediately terminates an agent's access and halts its operations.

How does Kill Switch work?

Essential for incident response when an agent exhibits anomalous or dangerous behavior.

Which terms are related to Kill Switch?

Closely related concepts include Agent Context Isolation, Agent Behavior Policy, Agent Sandboxing, Containment Strategy. Each is defined in the Prefactor glossary.

§02 / RELATEDnext: where this fits
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Where this fits.

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