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The collection policy is a per-product setting in the Agent Feedback dashboard that controls which of your product’s responses receive an embedded feedback contract. Think of it as a second layer of scoping on top of the SDK — it lets you refine or restrict instrumentation without redeploying your integration. Changes to the policy take effect immediately for new interactions without a code change or restart.

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What the collection policy controls

Every time your middleware processes a request, it decides whether to embed a _agentFeedback object in the response. The collection policy is the dashboard-side half of that decision:
  • Route patterns — include and exclude glob patterns set in the dashboard, scoped to a single product. These mirror the same wildcard syntax as the SDK options (* for a single path segment, ** for multiple).
  • FeedbackMode override — you can change the feedback mode for a subset of routes directly from the dashboard without touching your deployed code.
The policy does not change what data is stored. Agent Feedback always stores only outcome (one of success, partial, or failure) and note (one short sentence). The collection policy only governs which responses embed the feedback request in the first place.

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How SDK filtering and the collection policy interact

Filtering happens in two sequential steps:
  1. SDK-level evaluation — the include and exclude arrays you pass to agentFeedback() are checked first. If the request path does not pass SDK-level filtering, it is excluded immediately and the dashboard policy is never consulted.
  2. Dashboard policy evaluation — for requests that pass SDK-level filtering, the dashboard policy applies additional scoping. A response is instrumented only when both layers allow it.
This means the SDK acts as your minimum floor: you control which routes the middleware ever touches in code. The dashboard policy lets product or operations teams make targeted adjustments within that floor without requiring a deployment.
The SDK’s built-in exclusions (health endpoints, metrics, assets, and Agent Feedback’s own endpoints) are applied before both layers and cannot be overridden from the dashboard.

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FeedbackMode options

The feedback mode controls how the instruction is phrased inside the _agentFeedback envelope. You can set a default mode in your SDK options and override it per route in the dashboard.

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auto (default)

The instruction tells the agent to submit its outcome review autonomously before delivering its final response to the user. The requested field in the envelope is true. Use auto for endpoints where you want deterministic collection from feedback-aware agent runtimes.

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ask

The instruction requests feedback but does not command the agent. The requested field is false. Use ask for sensitive product areas — such as endpoints that handle emotionally difficult topics — where a softer tone is more appropriate.

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off

Disables the feedback contract on matching responses entirely. No _agentFeedback field is embedded and no telemetry opportunity is enqueued for that interaction. Use off to carve out specific routes within a broader include pattern.
Setting feedbackMode: "off" in your SDK options disables instrumentation for all routes in that middleware instance. Use the dashboard policy to disable specific routes within an otherwise instrumented surface.

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Best practices

Start with a narrow include list targeting your two or three highest-value endpoints. Run agent-feedback-doctor against each URL to confirm the contract is correctly embedded before widening your scope. Expanding incrementally makes it easier to diagnose configuration issues.
  • Validate before expanding — confirm each instrumented route passes the doctor check before adding more routes to your include list.
  • Use ask mode for sensitive areas — any endpoint that returns emotionally sensitive content, legal advice, or medical information is a good candidate for ask instead of auto.
  • Layer your filters thoughtfully — keep broad patterns in the dashboard policy and precise exclusions in your SDK exclude array, where they’re reviewed during code changes.
  • Review the policy after major route changes — if you rename or restructure your API routes, revisit both your SDK options and your dashboard policy to make sure the patterns still match correctly.

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Privacy

The collection policy determines which responses request feedback. It has no effect on the data that is stored when feedback is submitted. Agent Feedback enforces privacy at the submission layer:
  • Only outcome and note are accepted.
  • Notes are whitespace-normalized and must be between 8 and 500 characters.
  • Fields containing prompts, transcripts, credentials, personal data, or raw product content are rejected by the backend.
  • Capability tokens contain only protocol version, interaction ID, issuance and expiry timestamps, and a random nonce — never customer data or product content.
Disabling the collection policy on a route does not delete previously collected feedback for that route. It only stops new feedback contracts from being embedded going forward.