Infrastructure automation provider HashiCorp Inc. is doubling down on policy enforcement.

The startup, which counts Pinterest Inc. and Barclays PLC among its clients, today introduced a framework called Sentinel to help companies enforce internal compliance policies. It was developed to address the inherent risks involved in managing a firm’s technology infrastructure. Tools such as HashiCorp’s have made it easier than ever for administrators to roll out changes, which means there’s often more room for error.

Sentinel can be used to create what the startup refers to as “policy guardrails.” A specialized syntax included in the framework enables compliance teams to define fine-grained rules for what personnel can and cannot do.

According to HashiCorp, the software goes beyond the native access controls built into many components of the average company’s infrastructure. Sentinel provides the ability to regulate not only major changes such as file deletions but practically any user input. Moreover, the framework can automatically fetch necessary contextual data.

Sentinel could, for example, be configured to check the logs in a company’s change management system to ensure that all relevant procedures were followed with an update. Companies may customize how the framework handles violations based on their severity.

Sentinel offers three enforcement options. The software can show users a warning before they apply a potentially risky change, block the operation or issue a “soft-mandatory” block. The latter setting prevents a change from rolling out by default, but can be overwritten by a staffer with sufficient security permissions.

Sentinel is integrated into the enterprise versions of HashiCorp’s flagship open-source automation tools. Policy enforcement is implemented in a different way for each product. The startup’s Vault Enterprise security management system, for instance, provides the ability to restrict access based on how recently a user logged in.

HashiCorp announced Sentinel alongside enhancements to its core infrastructure automation features. The startup unveiled new versions of Vault, the Consul service discovery tool and Nomad, which handles the low-level work involved in running applications. They are joined by prebuilt configuration templates for the Terraform infrastructure management system.

Collectively, HashiCorp says that its tools are downloaded thousands of times a day. The startup raised $24 million in funding last year to keep the momentum going.

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