Policy as Code JSON: Enforce Consent and Regions in Every Flow

Policy as Code JSON: Enforce Consent and Regions in Every Flow



Your compliance policy is sitting in a PDF while your automations do whatever they want. The moment a procurement reviewer asks you to prove—not describe, prove—that your flows obey your own policy, you're stuck. Today Jordan fixes that with policy as code JSON: a single versioned file that encodes consent, data residency, and tool-allowlist rules, plus the evaluator that checks those rules before every downstream call.

The Problem: Policy Drift



Most solo practices have the same gap: you build a Make scenario that routes EU customer data through an OpenAI classification step, but where does that API call actually go? Which endpoint? Which region? You encoded those rules in your head when you picked the module settings. Next month, you'll encode them again—slightly differently, from memory. That's policy drift, and it's invisible until someone audits you.

The Solution: Policy as Data



The core is one JSON file—policy.json. It's not code, it's data. And that distinction matters because data is portable, versionable, and something a procurement reviewer can actually read.



The file has six sections:




• Consent flags: Does this user allow processing, marketing use, model training?


• Data classes: Which categories can touch an LLM (generic text vs payment card numbers vs government IDs)?


• Regions: Which geographies for storage and processing, plus fallbacks?


• Purposes: Which business reasons are approved for LLM use?


• Retention: Log duration, field masking, model response storage?


• Tools: Which providers, endpoints, models, in which regions?


The Evaluator



The policy file needs an evaluator—JavaScript that sits in a Code step, reads the policy, reads the incoming request, and returns allow or deny.



Jordan uses JSONLogic: a lightweight rule engine that's a single JavaScript file. Your rules are also JSON, like "if resolved.vendor_allowed equals true AND resolved.region_OK equals true AND resolved.data_denied equals false... then allow."



Important caveat: On n8n Cloud, you cannot install npm packages. Either paste the JSONLogic library directly into your Code node, or write simple boolean checks inline.

Implementation in Make




1. Code step before any API/LLM module loads the policy and builds a request object


2. Evaluator runs and returns allow/deny plus reason


3. Router with Filter: allow equals true for the happy path


4. Fallback route sends Slack message with approve/reject options


5. Override path logs the approval and continues execution




Make's Router processes routes in order with fallback support—perfect for default-deny architecture.

Implementation in n8n



Nearly identical pattern:




1. Code node before API call with same evaluator logic


2. IF node: policy_decision.allow equals true


3. True branch goes to API node


4. False branch goes to Slack approval template




n8n has ready-made workflow templates for Slack approval routing with approve/reject buttons.

Region Routing Patterns



Once the evaluator says allow, you need vendor-specific routing:




• OpenAI: Project-level data residency with us.api.openai.com vs eu.api.openai.com domain prefixes


• Bedrock: Three routing modes with model ID prefixes—us. for US geographic, eu. for EU, global. for global


• Vertex AI: Regional endpoints where ML processing occurs in the request region


• Azure Foundry: Global/DataZone/Regional deployment types with geography controls


Testing and Proof



Write unit tests with sample payloads:




• EU user + OpenAI EU + allowed model + necessary purpose = Allow


• US user + marketing message + no consent = Deny


• EU user + Bedrock + US-prefixed model ID = Deny




Run these in a Code step test harness. Thirty seconds gets you a document proving "these five scenarios were evaluated against this policy and produced the correct outcome"—exactly what procurement reviewers want to see.

Resources



Governance-as-JSON Starter Pack: Complete policy.json template, JSONLogic evaluator snippets for Make and n8n, unit test examples, and vendor routing patterns. Paste the policy, drop in the snippet, and your flows start failing closed today.




This is Headcount Zero—proven builds you can ship solo. Jordan documents every workflow, pricing model, and client system to help solopreneurs escape the hiring trap while scaling revenue.

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