# Manage policies

Policies are sets of conditions that any change requested to the Ripple Custody environment must meet before the change can be executed.

For more information, see [Policies](/products/custody/v1.26/overview/governance#policies).

In this section you'll learn how to:

- Create policies
- Update policies


Policy creation is an advanced operation that requires a good understanding of how system governance works in Ripple Custody. Since policies act as the gatekeepers for all system update operations, they carry a high level of risk if not implemented properly.

Before you begin creating new policies, we recommend you familiarize yourself with governance and policy best practices, by reading the following sections:

- [Governance framework](/products/custody/v1.26/overview/governance)
- [Policy design](/products/custody/v1.26/get-started/design/policies)


You can also find some API payload example workflows and conditions in the following sections:

- [Policy examples](/products/custody/v1.26/get-started/design/policies/examples)
- [Conditions](/products/custody/v1.26/api/environment/policy/conditions)
- [Workflows](/products/custody/v1.26/api/environment/policy/workflows)


Policy creation is itself subject to the same policy approval workflow as all other system changes!