# Verification Rules
Verification rules allow you to customize how monitoring agents evaluate and respond to alarm trigger events. For each of the predefined categories that an agent may assign an alarm trigger, you can choose for the agent to:
* Raise an alarm
* Notify you via an automated message
* Dismiss the verification event completely.
***
## Predefined categories
Each alarm trigger-generated event only gets assigned one of the possible predefined categories.
| | |
| -------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Category** | **Description** |
| **Threat to Person Or Property** | An agent witnesses a visible threat to people or property. This event always raises an alarm. The agent response for this category is always fixed to **Raise an Alarm** and cannot be customized. |
| **Agent Cannot Determine Threat** | The agent sees a person but is undecided if they are a threat. The agent response to this category can be customized. |
| **Unknown Person INSIDE Business** | There is no visible threat, but the agent sees a person inside a business who does not appear to be an employee or emergency service personnel. The agent response to this category can be customized. |
| **Unknown Person OUTSIDE Business** | There is no visible threat, but the agent sees a person outside a business who does not appear to be an employee or emergency service personnel. The agent response to this category can be customized. |
| **Emergency Service Personnel on Site** | There is no visible threat, but the agent sees one or more people that appear to be emergency service personnel. The agent response to this category can be customized. |
| **Apparent Employee Doing Routine Activity** | There is no visible threat, but the agent sees a person who appears to be an employee doing routine activity. The person may be wearing a uniform and/or clearly performing work-related tasks. The agent response to this category can be customized. |
| **Technical Error** | The video could not be viewed due to technical issues. The [agent response](#h_e66c0b3197) to this category can be customized. |
### Agent responses
| | |
| --------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Response** | **Description** |
| **Raise Alarm** | Monitoring agent follows normal alarm procedures, as specified in your site settings. Response protocol may include deterrence actions, such as [Agent Talk Down](/classic-alarms/configuration/agent-talk-down-with-classic-alarms.md), calling down emergency contacts, and/or dispatching police. |
| **Notify** | Verkada only sends automated SMS and email notifications to your contact list. The event does not raise an alarm.
Note: You won’t be able to contact the agent by responding to the text because it is an automated message. Contact Verkada Support instead.
|
| **Do Nothing** | The event is dismissed. No notifications are sent and the event does not raise an alarm.
Note: Video from all verifications is available in Verkada Command for review for the duration of the camera’s retention policy.
|
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