---
title: Clients and scope
description: How a client's own rules override your house defaults, how Vythos knows which client a piece of work is for, and what it tells a tool when a client rule is withheld.
---

<span class="vy-eyebrow">Core concepts</span>

# Clients and scope

Every rule has a **scope**: either *every client* — your house default — or one
named client.

This is the single most valuable thing in the Playbook, because it's the thing
people get wrong under time pressure. Your standard terms say 30 days. One
client negotiated 45. Everyone knows that, until the proposal is written at
half past six by someone who wasn't in that meeting.

## How scope works

- **A client rule wins.** For work for that client, their rule replaces your
  house rule in the same category. Nothing is merged, nothing is averaged.
- **It wins across categories too.** Scope is checked before category, so a
  client's *Brand & voice* rule outranks every house rule, whatever its
  category.
- **Where a client has no rule, your house rules apply.** You don't have to
  duplicate anything. Add the two or three documents where that client differs.

## Adding a client

Clients are added by hand, on the Playbook page — type the name and confirm.
Vythos does not scan your documents for client names and invent accounts; if a
client exists, it's because someone typed it.

Once a client exists, *Which client is it for?* in the Add rule card offers
them. See [Clients](/using-vythos/clients) for the steps.

## How Vythos knows which client work is for

**In Ask:** from your question. "What are Acme's payment terms?" is recognised
as being about Acme, and their rules come back ahead of your defaults.

**From an AI tool:** the tool can name the client. If it doesn't, Vythos reads
the client out of the task description the same way Ask does.

Matching is against your list of clients, not a guess. An unrecognised name
matches nothing, and an ambiguous one — two clients whose names overlap —
matches nothing rather than picking. Vythos never invents a client, and never
creates one from a mention.

::: warning Naming a client grants nothing
Client detection decides what is *asked for*, never what is allowed. If a
teammate is restricted to one client, naming another returns nothing at all.
Access is checked separately, every time. See
[Your team and their access](/using-vythos/team-and-access).
:::

## When no client is named

Work that names no client gets your house rules only. Client rules are
deliberately left out — an agent writing Acme's brief must not be handed
another client's terms.

But an AI tool is also told, in the same breath, **that an exception exists**:
which client and which category, never what it says. So a tool can say "there
are pricing rules specific to this client — tell me who this is for" instead of
confidently quoting your default.

## Restricting someone to particular clients

When you invite a teammate you can assign them clients. Assign none and they
see every client's rules, within the categories they have access to. Assign one
or more and those are the only client rules that reach them — in Ask and in
their own AI tools.

Useful for freelancers who work on one account, and for contractors you'd
rather not show your whole book to.

## Retiring a client's rules

A client rule is retired like any other, from its row on the Playbook. The
client stays; their rules stop applying. If an engagement ends, retire the
rules that were specific to them — otherwise their terms keep outranking your
defaults for work that mentions their name.

Next: [Values](/concepts/values).