# NVIDIA/OpenShell

OpenShell is the safe, private runtime for autonomous AI agents.

Repository: https://github.com/NVIDIA/OpenShell
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/openshell
Homepage: https://docs.nvidia.com/openshell/latest/
Language: Rust
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2026-08-26T23:43:41+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 78/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:39:23.370411+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 87, longevity 13
- inputs: {"age_days": 190, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 8, "gap_med": 1, "n_releases_24m": 92}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 8378, forks 1231 (observed 2026-08-28T04:10:20.568074+00:00)

## What it is
NVIDIA OpenShell is an open-source runtime for executing autonomous AI agents (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Copilot CLI) inside sandboxed environments with kernel-level isolation. It combines a CLI, a gateway control plane, and an in-sandbox supervisor that enforce declarative YAML policies over filesystem access, network egress, and credentials to prevent data exfiltration and unauthorized actions.

## Use cases
- run AI coding agents in a sandbox without giving them unrestricted file or network access
- prevent AI agents from exfiltrating credentials or data
- enforce declarative security policies on autonomous agent execution
- isolate agent workloads with microvms, Docker, Podman, or Kubernetes
- route agent LLM inference through controlled providers like Vertex AI
- audit and log agent network and filesystem activity
- deploy a secure agent gateway to a Kubernetes or OpenShift cluster

## When to choose
- you run autonomous AI agents (Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Copilot CLI) and need kernel-level isolation and egress control
- you want declarative YAML policies governing what agents can access
- you need a self-hosted gateway with observability, mTLS, and Kubernetes/OpenShift deployment

## When to avoid
- you need a production-hardened solution - the project is explicitly alpha with breaking changes expected
- you only need simple container isolation without agent-specific policy enforcement
- you cannot run Docker, Podman, MicroVMs, or Kubernetes as a compute driver

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: experimental
- function: security, agent-framework, configuration-management, monitoring, logging, cli, container-runtime, secrets-management, networking
- domain: security, developer-tools, self-hosted, privacy, infrastructure-as-code
- platform: windows, cli, self-hosted, rust, python
- tags: sandbox, ai-agent-security, microvm, policy-enforcement, data-exfiltration-prevention, kernel-isolation, gateway, supervisor, yaml-policies, claude-code, codex, opencode, copilot-cli, helm-chart, mtls, sandboxing, ai-agents, containers, linux, macos, docker, kubernetes

## Member repositories
- NVIDIA/OpenShell (main) score 78

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:20.568074+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:27:31.912545+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/NVIDIA/OpenShell (fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:20.568074+00:00, sha 4ff5fceb1793)
  - homepage: https://docs.nvidia.com/openshell/latest/ (fetched 2026-08-29T08:27:28.778407+00:00, sha 090675675b4c)
  - site_page: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/about-nvidia/privacy-policy (fetched 2026-08-29T08:27:28.793909+00:00, sha 5362c58d0750)
  - site_page: https://docs.nvidia.com/openshell/about/release-notes (fetched 2026-08-29T08:27:28.789090+00:00, sha abacd4708332)
  - site_page: https://docs.nvidia.com/openshell/about/how-it-works (fetched 2026-08-29T08:27:28.781265+00:00, sha 45a1a50b43df)
  - site_page: https://docs.nvidia.com/openshell/about/installation (fetched 2026-08-29T08:27:28.783528+00:00, sha 29619cac75cd)
  - site_page: https://docs.nvidia.com/openshell/about/container-gateway (fetched 2026-08-29T08:27:28.785565+00:00, sha ec59dc82297d)
  - site_page: https://docs.nvidia.com/openshell/about/supported-agents (fetched 2026-08-29T08:27:28.787463+00:00, sha 2f1c4b20a7ed)
  - site_page: https://docs.nvidia.com/openshell/get-started/quickstart (fetched 2026-08-29T08:27:28.790622+00:00, sha 3ded27d48ca9)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.