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Managing rules and policies is an ongoing process. This guide covers understanding what you have configured today, and how to review it as your organization evolves.

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Understanding your current rules

Before managing rules, understand what you have:
1

Open vault or admin policies

Go to Settings > Policies, then select a vault policy or the admin policy.
2

Review each operation type's rule

For a vault policy, review the rules for governance, staking, and withdrawal. For the admin policy, review the rules for user management, trusted destination, vault, and API management.
3

Understand each rule

For each rule, note:
  • Who is in the base quorum, and how many approvals are required
  • Which sub-quorums (if any) are attached, and their members and approval counts
4

Identify operation types still on default

Any operation type you haven’t customized still follows the default policy — confirm that’s intentional.

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Regular rule reviews

Conduct periodic reviews of your rules: Review checklist:
  • Does the base quorum for each operation type still reflect current staff and roles?
  • Are any sub-quorums stale (referencing people who’ve left)?
  • Are there too many mandatory sub-quorums on one rule, creating a bottleneck?
  • Do approvers still understand the approval requirements for each operation type?
  • Have business conditions changed enough to warrant customizing a rule that’s still on default?

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Identifying problem configurations

Signs of problematic rule configurations:

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Rule maintenance schedule

Establish a regular maintenance cadence:

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Updating rules

When updating a rule, follow this process:
  1. Identify the issue — What’s not working about the current rule for this operation type?
  2. Design the change — Will you change the base quorum, its approval count, or the attached sub-quorums?
  3. Announce the change — Notify affected approvers
  4. Implement — Make the change and submit for approval
  5. Document — Record what changed and why
See Editing rules and Editing subquorums for detailed instructions.

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Simplifying complex structures

Over time, rules can accumulate too many mandatory sub-quorums. Simplify when possible: Signs of over-complexity:
  • A single rule has many sub-quorums, all mandatory, making approval very slow
  • Approvers are confused about why so many groups must sign off
Simplification strategies:
  1. Remove redundant sub-quorums — If two sub-quorums have substantially overlapping membership, consider consolidating
  2. Reconsider whether a group’s sign-off is truly mandatory — Remember, subquorums can’t be made optional; if a group shouldn’t always be required, it shouldn’t be a sub-quorum on that rule
  3. Review the base quorum size — A very large base quorum with a high approval count can be simplified by adjusting the count

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Approval process communication

Ensure users understand the process:
  1. Document each rule — Create a simple reference showing, for each operation type, the base quorum and any sub-quorums
  2. Training — New users should understand their approval responsibilities
  3. Examples — Show concrete examples of how an operation moves through base quorum and sub-quorum approval
Example documentation:

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Handling policy exceptions

Sometimes operations need special handling:
  1. Escalation — If normal approvers aren’t available, contact Porto support — see Customizing admin policy for emergency procedures
  2. Temporary changes — You can edit a rule’s base quorum or sub-quorums temporarily for unusual situations, then edit it back
Document these procedures so users know their options.

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Policy evolution tracking

As rules change over time, maintain a changelog: This history helps with compliance, auditing, and understanding why rules are structured as they are.

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Getting stakeholder buy-in

When proposing rule changes:
  1. Document the rationale — Why is the change needed?
  2. Show impact — How will approvals change? Speed? Security?
  3. Get feedback — Ask stakeholders (approvers, compliance, legal)
  4. Communicate the change — Make sure everyone affected knows before it takes effect

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Best practices summary

  • Regular reviews — Periodic audits catch stale membership and unnecessary bottlenecks early
  • Clear documentation — Approvers should understand why each rule is structured as it is
  • Use sub-quorums sparingly — Every sub-quorum attached to a rule is mandatory; keep the count low
  • Communicate changes — Users should know about rule updates before they take effect
  • Keep history — Document why rules changed; helps with future decisions
  • One change at a time — Don’t modify multiple rules simultaneously