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# Automated Policies

> For the full documentation index, see: https://docs.mulesoft.com/llms.txt

Use automated policies to enforce security and logging requirements by applying the same policies to
all APIs running in Mule. With policy automation, you can quickly design, build, and deploy secure
and consistent APIs.

Automated policies enable you to deploy APIs with confidence because the target environment
automatically enforces critical policies, resulting in reduced errors. An administrator no longer
needs to remember to insert a policy to enforce common standards manually.

You can configure all [included policies](https://docs.mulesoft.com/mule-gateway/policies-included-directory) and
[custom policies](https://docs.mulesoft.com/mule-gateway/policies-custom-overview) as automated policies and apply them to the APIs running
in an environment.

## Automated Policies in Mule

The following rules apply to automated policies in Mule runtime engine (Mule):

- Automated policies are available only for Mule 4 APIs using a MuleSoft-hosted control plane.

- Automated policies support all runtime deployment targets (CloudHub, Runtime Fabric, and hybrid).

- Automated policies have priority over the same types of policies already applied to a specific API
  proxy.

  For example, if an API proxy running Mule 4.1.2 has an IP Allowlist policy to allow only the IP
  range 192.168.100.0/22 (from 192.168.100.0 to 192.168.103.255), and a new IP Allowlist automated
  policy is created to only allow the IP range 192.168.100.14/24 (from 192.168.100.0 to
  192.168.100.255) and is applied to all supported Mule versions (4.1.1 and above), then this latter
  automated policy prevails.

  Note that in the above example, the IP range changed when the automated policy was applied.

  Additionally, if there is an automated policy already applied, you cannot apply that specific type
  of policy as a provided policy in a specific API proxy.

- As an administrator, you can apply policies specific to external identity providers (IdPs, such as
  OpenID) if the environment to which you want to apply policies includes them.

  The policy is then enforced only on those APIs that have the same IdPs configured. For example, if
  you apply the PingFederate Access Token Enforcement policy, the policy is enforced on only those
  APIs that are configured to use PingFederate as the IdP.

> [!NOTE] [Alerts](https://docs.mulesoft.com/api-manager/latest/using-api-alerts) cannot be added to API instances
> protected by automated policies.

## See Also

- [Applying Automated Policies](https://docs.mulesoft.com/mule-gateway/policies-automated-applying)