> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.hyperspell.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Content rules
> Filter rules keep sensitive content from spreading. Sharing rules bring useful personal content to the team. This page explains both and how they are applied.
By default, a document's audience depends on where it came from: content from a shared integration is visible to everyone in the organization, and content from a personal integration is visible only to the person who connected it. Content rules let admins refine those defaults based on what a document actually says.
There are two kinds of rules. Filter rules narrow. Sharing rules widen. Both are written by admins in Settings, and both are judged by the same machinery when content arrives.
## Filter rules
Filter rules exist for the categories that must never spread: compensation, HR matters, legal disputes, credentials, whatever your company decides. They apply to any content that would otherwise reach more people than those who connected it.
When a filter rule matches a document:
* If the document came in through a shared integration, nobody can see it.
* If it came in through a personal integration and a sharing rule would have widened it, it stays with the person who connected it.
Nothing is deleted. The content stays stored, held back from the company brain. Admins can review what a filter caught to check for false positives, and see which rule matched and why. They do not see the private content of others in the process.
Filter rules are set up by admins and apply to everyone in the organization. Members cannot opt out of them.
## Sharing rules
Content from personal integrations is private by default, which keeps a lot of useful knowledge out of reach: the customer call in one person's Granola, the vendor negotiation in another's inbox. Sharing rules are how that content reaches the team on purpose.
A sharing rule says "content like this is meant for the whole organization", for example conversations with customers, or meetings about product. Admins write the rules. Each person then decides, for their own connections, which rules to turn on. A rule that a person has not turned on is never even evaluated against their content.
When a sharing rule a person turned on matches one of their documents, the document is offered to the organization. Whether it is shared automatically or after the owner confirms depends on how confident the match is, described [below](#confidence-and-review).
Sharing rules are being rolled out to organizations in stages. If you do not see the Sharing settings in your dashboard yet, [let us know](mailto:hello@hyperspell.com) and we will enable them for you.
## Writing a rule
A rule has a name and a description. The description is what Hyperspell uses to judge content, so write it the way you would explain the category to a new colleague. Vague descriptions produce vague matches.
| Weak description | Better description |
| ---------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Sensitive stuff | Salary figures, compensation bands, bonus and equity details for named employees |
| Legal | Drafts or executed contracts, NDAs, terms of service, and correspondence with outside counsel |
| Customer calls | Meetings or call transcripts where at least one participant is a customer or prospect, including sales discovery calls and support escalations |
A few things to keep in mind:
* Rules are judged on content, not on titles. A document called "Q3 planning" that spends a paragraph on salary bands will match a compensation filter.
* One good example beats three adjectives. If you can, add a sentence or two of the kind of content you mean.
* Start with filter rules for the categories that would cause real harm if they spread. Add sharing rules once those are in place.
## How rules are applied
Rules are evaluated when content arrives, not when someone asks a question. This keeps queries fast and makes every decision reproducible.
A document comes in through one or more connections. Hyperspell records which connection brought it in and who owns that connection. The same document can arrive through several connections, for example a shared drive that two people also connected personally, and each is recorded.
Hyperspell works out which rules apply to this document and judges each one against the content:
* The default rule of every connection that brought the document in. A shared connection's default is "everyone". A personal connection's default is "its owner".
* Sharing rules that at least one owner of the document has turned on.
* Filter rules, but only if anything above could widen the document beyond a single owner. Purely private content that no sharing rule touches has nothing to narrow, so filters do not run on it.
Each match is recorded with the rule, its version, and how confident the match was.
The document's audience is the union of every sharing rule that matched, intersected with every filter rule that matched. In plain terms: sharing rules add people, filter rules take them away, and a filter always beats a sharing rule.
The result is written down as grants, one per audience, each pointing at the rule and version that produced it. Every grant can be explained after the fact.
### Confidence and review
Each match carries a confidence score. Where the score falls decides what happens:
* Above the automatic threshold, the rule acts on its own.
* In the middle band, the match is queued for the owner to review.
* Below the ignore threshold, nothing happens.
Filter rules act on any match. The admin who set them up already decided that the category should not spread, so there is nothing to ask.
Sharing rules are more careful. New sharing rules start with automatic sharing turned off, so every match asks the owner first. Queued matches appear in that person's Inbox, one card per document, showing the source, the title, the rule that matched, and the passage that triggered it. The owner clicks Share or Dismiss. Nothing leaves their view until they do.
A document that matches both a sharing rule and a filter rule is never shown in the Inbox. The filter has already decided.
### What changes when you change a rule
Sharing is sticky and filters are live. Once a document has been shared with the organization, it stays shared unless a filter rule narrows it. Filter rules are re-evaluated whenever they change, so removing one lets the content it was holding back widen again.
| You do this | What happens |
| ----------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Add or edit a filter rule | Applies to content that arrives from now on. Existing content is only re-checked if an admin explicitly runs the rules over it, which shows an estimate and asks for confirmation first. |
| Pause or delete a filter rule | Content it was holding back becomes visible again at its normal audience. |
| Add a sharing rule | Nothing happens until people turn it on for their connections. |
| Turn a sharing rule on for yourself | Your content is judged against it from now on. An option lets you also check your existing content. |
| Turn a sharing rule off | Nothing already shared is taken back. Sharing never retracts on its own. |
| Pause or delete a sharing rule | Existing shares stand. New content is no longer judged against it. |
| Disconnect an integration | The audience that connection contributed is removed. Anything the document earned through other connections or rules stays. |
The only way to take back something that was shared is a filter rule that matches it. This is deliberate: sharing should be a decision people can trust, not something that flickers as configuration changes.
## What you will see in the dashboard
Admins find rules under Settings, in two lists: filter rules and sharing rules. Each rule can be created, edited, paused, or deleted. Configuration and content are kept apart on purpose, so this page never shows anyone's documents.
Each member has two personal surfaces:
* Sharing lists the admin's sharing rules as toggles. Turning one on applies from that moment forward. A secondary action lets you check your existing content against the rule too.
* Inbox shows the documents waiting for your decision. Acting on a card brings the next one into view. When the queue is empty it says so.
Admins see only their own content in their Inbox.
## Guarantees
These hold regardless of how rules are configured:
* Nothing widens past its defaults without a matching rule, the owner's opt-in, and, when the match is uncertain, the owner's approval.
* Filter rules beat sharing rules. Filtered content always stays with the people who connected it, or with nobody if it came from a shared integration.
* Sharing fails closed. If a rule cannot be evaluated, nothing is shared.
* Sharing never retracts by itself. Pausing or deleting a sharing rule leaves existing shares standing.
* Every grant is explainable: which connection, which rule, which version, who decided.
* A document outlives its first owner. As long as one active connection still holds it, it stays in the brain.
* Nobody, admins included, sees another person's private content in the process of managing rules.
## Related
The model that content rules operate on.
Every other setting in the dashboard, including how integrations are set up as shared or personal.