Getting Started

Core Concepts

A handful of ideas explain how everything in BOS fits together. Understand these and the rest of the product makes sense.

1. The workflow engine (the single write path)

Every meaningful change in BOS — creating an invoice, approving leave, closing a deal — flows through one central workflow engine. Instead of each module writing to the database in its own way, they all go through the same gate.

That gate does four things in order:

Checks policy — are you allowed to do this?
Routes approval — does someone need to sign off first?
Executes — performs the actual change.
Records a receipt — writes a hash-chained, tamper-evident audit entry.

Why it matters

Because there's only one write path, governance and auditing are guaranteed — they can't be skipped by a particular feature or shortcut.

2. Governance: RBAC, ABAC, and SoD

BOS controls who can do what using three layers:

RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) — permissions based on your role, e.g. a Manager can approve expenses, a Member cannot.
ABAC (Attribute-Based Access Control) — permissions based on conditions, e.g. expenses over ₹50,000 need an extra approval.
SoD (Separation of Duties) — the same person can't both create and approve a sensitive action, preventing fraud.

3. Approvals

When an action needs sign-off, BOS automatically creates an approval request and routes it to the right person. Approvals can be single-step or require two people. See Approvals.

4. The audit trail

Every action produces an entry in a hash-chained audit log. Each entry is linked to the one before it, so if anyone tried to alter or delete a past record, the chain would break and the tampering would be obvious. See Audit Trail.

5. AI autonomy

The Orin assistant operates at an autonomy level you choose, from L0 (does nothing automatically) to L4 (bounded autopilot — currently disabled in production; every AI-initiated action requires human approval today). This lets you adopt AI at your own pace. See Autonomy Levels.

6. Multi-tenant isolation

Each organization's data is completely separated from every other organization. Your users, records, roles, and audit log are yours alone — there's no shared pool.

Putting it together

A request comes in → the workflow engine checks your role and attributes → routes an approval if required → executes the change → writes a hash-chained audit receipt. Orin can start that request for you, within the autonomy level you set.