How house rules can approve routine visitors for you
House rules let your flat approve routine visitors in advance. Decisions at the gate are deterministic, and anything unclear still escalates to you.
Why does every delivery interrupt me?
Because by default, every unannounced arrival becomes an access request, and every access request goes to you. A guard raises it at the gate, your phone rings, and someone waits until you tap approve. Four deliveries a day is four interruptions a day.
House rules remove the interruptions you would always have answered the same way, and leave the rest alone.
What are house rules?
House rules are decisions your flat writes down in advance. When an access request arrives at the gate, AKCS checks it against your flat's rules and acts on the first rule that matches. If nothing matches, the request comes to you exactly as it does today.
Two things make this safe to rely on:
- The decision at the gate is deterministic. It is plain rule matching. Nothing is guessed, weighed, or predicted in the moment. The same request against the same rules gives the same answer every time.
- An assistant only helps you write the rule. You can describe a rule in your own words and have it turned into a rule before you save it. That happens beforehand, while you are setting up. It has no part in the decision at the gate.
Is my community using house rules yet?
Probably not. House rules are set per community and ship switched off. Your committee turns them on, and there is a middle setting so they can watch the feature before trusting it.
| Mode | What happens at the gate | Who it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Off | Every access request comes to residents, as normal. This is the default. | Every community, until the committee changes it |
| Shadow | Rules are evaluated and the decision is recorded, but nothing is acted on. Residents still decide. | A committee that wants to see what the rules would have done before going live |
| Live | Matching rules are acted on at the gate | A community that has reviewed its shadow record |
What can a house rule actually do?
A rule can take one of three actions. There is no fourth.
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Auto-approve | The visitor is let in without your phone ringing. The entry is still logged against your flat. |
| Auto-reject | The request is refused at the gate without reaching you. |
| Hold during quiet hours | The request is held rather than pushed to you, so a late-night delivery does not wake the flat. |
Rules match on a person, on a delivery brand, or on a visit category. Categories are the access request types your guard already picks from: visitor, delivery, worker, plumber, electrician, maid, driver, cab and other.
| Rule type | What it matches | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Deny person | One named person | Someone your flat does not want sent up, ever |
| Deny category | A whole visit type | No unannounced workers |
| Quiet hours | A time window | Hold everything between 10 pm and 7 am |
| Allow person | One named person | Your regular maid or driver |
| Allow brand | A named delivery brand | A courier company your flat uses constantly |
| Allow category | A whole visit type | All daytime deliveries |
Which rule wins when two rules apply?
The strictest thing that matches wins. AKCS works down a fixed order and stops at the first match, so a deny always beats an allow and your committee's settings always beat your flat's.
- Community guardrails. Whatever your committee has fixed for the whole community.
- Your flat's deny-person rules. A blocked person stays blocked.
- Quiet hours and deny-category rules.
- Allow-person rules.
- Allow-brand rules.
- Allow-category rules.
- Otherwise, the request escalates to you — the normal flow, unchanged.
What happens when nothing matches, or the data looks wrong?
The request comes to you. Two safety properties govern this, and both point the same way: towards asking a human.
- Unmatched means escalate. Anything your rules do not cover behaves exactly as it does with house rules switched off.
- Bad or ambiguous data escalates, never approves. If the information at the gate is incomplete or does not clearly match a rule, AKCS will not stretch to fit. An unknown delivery brand will always ask you. That is by design, not a gap.
When a request does reach you, the existing timings apply. It escalates after 90 seconds unanswered. If you answer late but within the 30-minute grace window, your answer is still recorded as a human decision rather than a timeout.
How many rules can one flat have?
Twenty-five active rules per flat. That is a hard limit. Most flats need a handful, but if you hit it, retire an old rule before adding a new one.
Rules belong to the flat, not to a person, so everyone in the flat is covered and the whole flat should agree on what is written. See how to add family members and tenants for who counts as part of your flat.
What can house rules not do yet?
Two things people ask for are not available, and both fail safely rather than quietly:
| Not available | What happens instead |
|---|---|
| Rules that require an OTP-verified person | The request escalates to you |
| Rules that require a face-verified person | Not shipped |
If you write a rule that depends on OTP verification, it will not auto-approve anyone. It escalates. Nobody gets in on a rule that does not exist.
Where should I start?
If house rules are live in your community, start with one rule for the visit you approve most often and leave everything else escalating. A planned visit is still better handled with a gate pass — see how to pre-approve a visitor.
Turning house rules on is a committee decision, not a per-flat one. Point your committee at AKCS Gate, or book a demo and we will walk them through shadow mode.
Still stuck?
Email contact@shinraidynamics.com and a human replies within the same working day.