ground rules

“He'll set the ground rules for rescuing Richard Kwang, and voting as Paul decides will be one of them.”

Noble House

“So what I want from you now is background-off the record, if you'd prefer-and once I know that, we can work out ground rules for the rest of my stay here.”

Phule me twice

“His theory, which consisted of four major stages and multiple substages, also set the ground rules for future stage theories: they are hierarchical, in that later stages grow out of earlier ones, and they are intransitive, that is, unable to be reordered.”

Simon & Schuster: The Truth About Grief