Merge pull request #307722 from nehakulkarni123/patch-25

Publish system policy guide

Author: v-ccolin

articles/governance/policy/concepts/systempolicy.md

@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+---
+title: "Azure System Policy"
+description: A guide to understand Azure system policy definitions and assignments.
+ms.date: 11/03/2025
+ms.topic: how-to
+author: nehakulkarni
+ms.author: nehakulkarni
+---
+# What is System Policy?
+Azure Policy’s system policy capability enables Microsoft to apply critical, system-level requirements across customer tenants in a safe, controllable manner. Just like existing policy assignments, system policies are applied at a per-tenant basis, and may be applied at any resource hierarchy scope. 
+
+## What kind of effect can a system policy have on my environment?
+System policies can block resource creation or updates depending on resource configuration (for example, resource location). System policy cannot modify resource configuration. System policies do not generate compliance reports. However, they may generate audit or deny events in activity log.
+
+## Can I edit or delete a system policy assignment?
+No, System policies are fully Microsoft managed. Customers may not edit or delete system policy assignments. Each system policy will surface a violation message that describes the restriction and includes a relevant documentation link. To learn more about the system policy restriction in-place and/or request support, go to the short link included in the system policy definition description.
+
+## How can I see what system policies are applied on my environment?
+System policy definitions and assignments are viewable in API, Azure Resource Graph, and other supported SDKs. System policies share a policy definition category of ‘System Policy’, which is found in the policy definition metadata. System policy definitions & assignments are not surfaced in Portal or documentation.

articles/governance/policy/toc.yml

@@ -283,6 +283,9 @@
   - name: Design Azure Policy as Code workflows
     displayName: devops, infrastructure as code, iac, release, continuous, delivery, deploy
     href: ./concepts/policy-as-code.md
+  - name: System Policy
+    displayName: system policy, system restriction
+    href: ./concepts/systempolicy.md
   - name: Security
     items:
     - name: Security baseline for Azure Security Benchmark