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e1gyesterday at 10:54 PM1 replyview on HN

Love the feedback -

For handling global rules (like ~/.gitconfig and ~/.gitignore), I keep a local policy file that whitelists my "shared globals" paths, and I tell Safehouse to include that policy by default. I just updated the README with an example that might be useful[1]. I also enabled access to ~/.gitignore by default as it's a common enough default.

For process management, there is a blurry line about how much to allow without undermining the sandboxing concept. I just added new integrations[2] to allow more process control and lldb, but I don't know this area well. You can try cloning the repo, asking your agents to tweak the rules in the repo until your use-case works, and send a PR - I'll merge it!

Alternatively, using the "custom policy" feature above, you can selectively grant broad access to your tools (you can use log monitoring to see rejections, and then add more permisions into the policy file)

[1] https://github.com/eugene1g/agent-safehouse?tab=readme-ov-fi...

[2] https://github.com/eugene1g/agent-safehouse/pull/7


Replies

atombenderyesterday at 11:22 PM

That is very useful. I wasn't sure if I could supply my own override list or how I would even format one, but this solves that problem!

The process control policy, that's kind of niche and should definitely not be something agents are always allowed to do, so having a shorthand flag like you added in that pull request is the right choice.

I'm sure Anthropic and the other major players will catch up and add better sandboxing eventually, but for now, this tool has been exactly what I needed — many thanks!

I also wonder if this could have be a plugin or MCP server? I was using this plugin [1] for a bit, and it appears to use a "PreToolUse" that modifies every tool invocation. The benefit here would be that you could even change the Safehouse settings inside a session, e.g. turn process control on or off.

[1] https://mksg.lu/blog/context-mode