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 # agent-sandbox
 
-Rootless podman sandbox for Claude Code with allowlisted egress
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+Runs Claude Code in a rootless podman sandbox. The only thing visible from the
+host is the directory you launch it from, and the only way out of the sandbox
+is a per-session router that serves the hostnames on your allowlist.
+
+## Usage
+
+```sh
+cd ~/src/some-repo
+agent-sandbox [claude args...]       # e.g. agent-sandbox --continue
+agent-sandbox --exec bash            # a shell in the sandbox instead of claude
+```
+
+- `$PWD` is mounted read-write at the same path. Files you create there are
+  owned by your host user. Nothing else from the host is mounted, and SELinux
+  labels on your files are never changed (`label=disable`).
+- Claude's home is the `agent-sandbox-home` podman volume (login, config and
+  nested container images live here). All sessions share it.
+- `podman` works inside the sandbox (nested rootless). The host podman socket is
+  never exposed.
+- You can run several sessions at once, from different directories.
+- Environment overrides: `AGENT_SANDBOX_IMAGE`, `AGENT_SANDBOX_ROUTER_IMAGE`,
+  `AGENT_SANDBOX_ALLOWLIST`, `AGENT_SANDBOX_HOME_VOLUME`.
+
+## Allowlist
+
+`~/.config/agent-sandbox/allowed-hosts` is copied from the packaged default on
+first run. It is read at the start of each session.
+
+```
+api.anthropic.com      exactly this host (ports 80 and 443)
+.example.com           example.com and every subdomain (ports 80 and 443)
+db.example.com:5432    this exact host on TCP 5432 too (ssh, postgres, ...)
+```
+
+You don't need a proxy setting. Allowlisted names resolve to loopback
+addresses inside the sandbox, and all other names return NXDOMAIN.
+
+## How it works
+
+Each session gets its own `--internal` podman network with no route out, and a
+pod on that network that holds the sandbox's netns, DNS and hosts file.
+
+- **router** (on the internal net and the shared egress net): dnsmasq answers
+  for allowlisted names only and never forwards a query. nginx routes 443 by
+  SNI and 80 by Host header to allowlisted names only. Each `host:port` entry
+  has its own router port, which forwards to that host and port only.
+- **forwarder** (in the pod, read-only, no capabilities except
+  NET_BIND_SERVICE): socat listeners on the loopback IPs that forward to the
+  router.
+- **claude** (in the pod, non-root keep-id user, no setuid binaries, no
+  NET_ADMIN, NET_RAW or SYS_ADMIN): has no capability over the netns. It can't
+  change addresses, routes, nftables, `/etc/hosts` or `/etc/resolv.conf`, and
+  can't see or signal the forwarders.
+- Nested containers share claude's netns by default. They get the same DNS and
+  forwarders, and they can't change the netns either. A nested container on its
+  own network (`--network pasta|bridge`) has no egress.
+
+## Threat model
+
+- Confined: direct IP egress, other hostnames, DNS exfiltration (dnsmasq never
+  forwards), SNI or Host spoofing (the destination is always the name the
+  client sent, and it must be on the allowlist), the host filesystem beyond
+  `$PWD`, and the host podman socket.
+- Not confined: anything you allowlist is still an exfiltration channel.
+  `git.unkin.net` and `api.anthropic.com` can carry your data out. `$PWD` is
+  writable, so anything there, including `.git/hooks`, runs later on the host
+  if you trust it.
+- Router-side DNS resolves allowlisted names on the host's resolvers, so
+  internal names like `vault.service.consul` work.
+- The home volume persists across sessions and is shared by all of them.
+
+## Development
+
+```sh
+make build        # local images (localhost/agent-sandbox{,-router}:dev)
+make test lint pre-commit
+make rpm          # dist/agent-sandbox-*.rpm
+make patch|minor|major
+```
+
+The in-repo launcher runs the local `:dev` images. The RPM's launcher pins the
+images published by the release pipeline for its tag:
+`artifactapi.k8s.syd1.au.unkin.net/docker-internal/agent-sandbox{,-router}`.