> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.trymaitai.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Sentinels

> Intent-group-level watchers that evaluate model outputs

**Sentinels** are the core building blocks for automated quality checks in Maitai.

A Sentinel defines:

* **What to evaluate** (its directive + examples)
* **How serious it is** (severity)
* Optionally, **how to qualify inputs** and **how to suggest corrections**

Sentinels are associated with an **Intent Group**, and they run against your **live production
traffic**, which is why they live under **Observe**, alongside Monitors. Their results show up on
Request pages, on the Sentinel detail page, and in the Events feed.

## Where to manage Sentinels

In the Portal, go to `Observe > Sentinels` for the top-level view (requests flagged by severity, with
a detail page per Sentinel). You can also open an **Intent Group** and use its **Sentinels** tab to
manage the sentinels scoped to that group.

## How Sentinels relate to Evaluations

* An **Evaluation** is the act of running one or more Sentinels on a request (producing per-sentinel
  results like `PASS` / `FAULT`).
* You review these results on the individual **Request page** (see
  [Evaluating a Request](/observe/sentinels/request_evaluations)) and on the **Sentinel detail** page.

## What a Sentinel can contain

When editing a Sentinel, you'll see:

* **Name** and **Severity**
* Up to three **stages**: Qualification, Evaluation, Correction, each with a directive and examples
* **Include options** (what context is included in the sentinel's evaluation input)

Next: [Generating Sentinels](/observe/sentinels/generation).