What is the difference between Raw Assessment and Policy API?

What is the difference between using Monocle to monitor vs. enforce traffic decisions?

Monitor is passive: Monocle provides visibility into how users connect to your application without impacting users or taking any blocking action. Enforce applies actions such as blocking or allowing traffic based on Monocle's assessments. Most users start with a monitoring phase before configuring and enabling enforcement.

Where does enforcement actually happen?

In most setups, enforcement happens in your own infrastructure, such as backend logic, API gateways, or middleware. For Cloudflare integrations, enforcement can happen at the edge and is directly configurable via the Monocle UI.

Which policy strategy should I use?

Allow All applies no blocking rules. Normal is recommended for most use cases. Aggressive blocks all anonymized traffic and carries a higher risk of false positives. Custom (Pro) gives access to all standard options plus more granular assessment attribute-level configuration.

Can we decrypt Monocle assessments ourselves instead of calling an API?

Yes — this is already supported at no extra cost. Every Monocle application has both a Secret Key (for the hosted Decryption API) and a Private Key (for manual backend decryption) available in the Monocle Dashboard. Backend decryption lets your own server decrypt the Monocle Assessment locally using the Private Key, without making a call to Spur's Decryption API.

Do I need a backend to use Monocle?

No. You can use Monocle to gain visibility into traffic intelligence via the Monocle UI without acting on it. With a supported integration like Cloudflare, traffic can be enforced directly from the UI based on policy configuration. A backend is only required if you want to decrypt assessments or apply custom enforcement logic.