Regulation rules
What this page is — the rules your live documents are checked against for regulatory drift, the sweep that re-checks them, and the history of what each sweep found.
What it is for — so when the law moves, the documents you already signed are re-read against it, instead of waiting for a dispute to reveal that clause 14 cites a repealed act.
The problem it solves — documents signed years ago keep relying on law that has since changed, and nobody re-reads them.
Route: /org/settings?tab=papers → Regulation rules · Permissions: Papers module limits, defaults, integrations and signature-provider toggles.
for organisation rules; Manage the project's regulation-rule overrides (requires open rules lock). for project rules while the rules lock is
open.
1. What it is
Rules come in three tiers:
| Tier | Owned by | Editable here |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | The Orbit operator | No — Rule not found (platform-curated rules are managed by the operator) |
| Organisation | You | Yes |
| Project override | A project, when its rules lock is open | By the project |
Each rule is checked by the Regulatory drift capability. A sweep runs that capability across live documents, and records a run with its findings.
Adding a rule does not by itself start nightly checks. The sweep runs only when all of these hold:
- the platform setting
PAPERS_DRIFT_SWEEP_ENABLEDistrue— it defaults to false; - the
RESIDENT_PAPERS_DRIFT_SWEEPjob is enabled; - your organisation has at least one active rule;
- your organisation has not been swept in the last 24 hours.
Run sweep now works regardless of the platform setting.
What a sweep does, and does not do:
| Does | Does not |
|---|---|
Re-checks live documents — not draft, discarded or archived | Re-check documents nothing has changed since the last finding |
Checks at most 15 documents per organisation per run (PAPERS_DRIFT_SWEEP_MAX_DOCS) | Sweep the whole estate at once |
| Stores findings with severity under a run | Freeze, lock or change any document |
On a high finding: an in-app alert to Papers admins, a drift_flagged event on the document, and a re-issue flag on the finding | Re-issue or amend anything |
2. Why you would use it
- Signed documents age silently. Nothing else in contract management tells you that the law beneath an executed agreement moved.
- Findings are auditable. Each run and its findings are kept, even after the rule that produced them is deleted.
- High findings reach a person. An alert and a flag on the document, not a report nobody opens.
- Cost is bounded. Only stale documents are re-checked, fifteen at a time.
3. Step by step
- + Rule → Name, Rule text, optional Jurisdiction and Applies to family, Applies to.
- Save. Toggle Disable to pause a rule.
- Run sweep now for an immediate check.
- Show sweep history to read runs and findings.
4. Field reference
| Field | Rules | Refusal |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Required | name and rule_text are required |
| Rule text | Required — the requirement, stated precisely | same |
| Jurisdiction | Optional | — |
| Applies to family | Blank = all families, or one of eleven | applies_family must be blank (all families) or one of: … |
| Applies to | Organisation, or a project | — |
Run sweep now with no active rules: no active regulation rules — add rules to opt in to drift monitoring.
Cost. Each document checked is one Regulatory drift run — about 450 credits. A full run of 15 documents
is about 6,750 credits, and counts against papers.ai_monthly_credit_cap.
| Finding severity | Result |
|---|---|
| High | Alert to Papers admins, drift_flagged event, re-issue flag |
| Medium / Low | Stored for review |
5. Worked example
A compliance lead adds one organisation rule after India's data-protection law changed:
Name: DPDP consent and breach notice Rule text: Agreements processing personal data must state consent, breach-notification within 72 hours, and a data-retention limit under the DPDP Act 2023. Jurisdiction: India · Family: Agreement
They press Run sweep now. Fifteen live agreements are checked — the cap — for about 6,750 credits. Two
come back high: both cite the old IT rules in their data-protection clause. Each gets a drift_flagged
event and the lead receives an alert. The documents are unchanged; the lead raises amendments for both.
They ask the platform operator to enable PAPERS_DRIFT_SWEEP_ENABLED, and the remaining agreements are
checked fifteen a day after that.
6. The admin contract
| Must be true | Where | What breaks without it |
|---|---|---|
PAPERS_DRIFT_SWEEP_ENABLED = true | Platform System Config | No scheduled sweeps — only manual runs |
RESIDENT_PAPERS_DRIFT_SWEEP job enabled | Job monitor | No scheduled sweeps |
| At least one active rule | This screen | No sweep, and Run sweep now is refused |
papers_regulatory_drift active and credit headroom | Orbit AI Flow, System Config | Sweeps fail |
| Someone owns acting on high findings | Your process | Flags accumulate unactioned |
7. Downstream
| When you… | Then |
|---|---|
| Add or edit a rule | Documents become stale and eligible for the next sweep |
| Disable a rule | Skipped by future sweeps |
| Delete a rule | Past findings are kept |
| A high finding is stored | Alert, drift_flagged event; nothing about the document changes |
8. Don't confuse this with…
| Regulatory drift | The capability, on one document. This runs it on many |
| Compliance & policy check | Your policy text, per run |
| Retention and holds | How long records are kept |
9. Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause |
|---|---|
| No nightly sweeps happen | PAPERS_DRIFT_SWEEP_ENABLED is false — its default |
| Run sweep now is refused | No active rules |
| Only 15 documents were checked | The per-run cap |
| A document was not re-checked | Nothing changed since its last finding, or it is a draft |
| A flagged document was not frozen | Sweeps never change documents |
| A platform rule cannot be edited | Operator-managed |