Local policy

The sbx policy command manages the local policy on your machine. The local policy contains network access rules. Rules apply to all sandboxes on the machine when you use the global scope, or to a single sandbox when scoped by name.

Local policy interacts with organization governance as follows:

• No org governance: the local policy controls what sandboxes can access.
• Org governance active: only organization allow rules grant access, so local allow rules are inactive and can't expand what the organization permits. Local deny rules are still evaluated, so you can restrict access further than the organization policy does. To list inactive rules, run sbx policy ls --include-inactive. See Monitoring.

See Organization policies for how organization governance works.

For domain patterns, wildcards, CIDR ranges, and filesystem path syntax, see Policy concepts.

Default preset

The only way traffic can leave a sandbox is through an HTTP/HTTPS proxy on your host, which enforces access rules on every outbound request. Non-HTTP TCP traffic, including SSH, can be allowed by adding a policy rule for the destination IP and port (for example, sbx policy allow network "10.1.2.3:22"). UDP and ICMP are blocked at the network layer and can't be unblocked with policy rules.

If you haven't chosen a default preset, the CLI prompts you before it runs a sandbox. Running sbx policy reset clears the preset and prompts you to choose again:

Initialize the global network policy for your sandboxes:

  Applies to all sandboxes, current and future — change it later with
  "sbx policy allow/deny/rm". Kits, including built-in agent kits, may
  also add per-sandbox rules.

     1. Open         — All network traffic allowed, no restrictions.
  ❯  2. Balanced     — Default deny, with common dev sites allowed.
     3. Locked Down  — All network traffic blocked unless you allow it.

  Use ↑/↓ or 1–3 to navigate, Enter to confirm, Esc to cancel.

The Balanced preset's baseline allowlist is a good starting point for most workflows. Run sbx policy ls to see exactly which rules it includes. As of v0.35.0, the Balanced preset also allows VS Code domains, Azure Blob Storage (*.blob.core.windows.net), and dhi.io over HTTP.

Note

If your organization manages sandbox policies centrally, organization rules take precedence over the preset you select here. See Organization policies.

Non-interactive environments

In non-interactive environments such as CI pipelines or headless servers, the interactive prompt can't be displayed. Use sbx policy init to set the preset before running any other sbx commands:

$ sbx policy init balanced

Available values are allow-all, balanced, and deny-all.

Managing rules

Use sbx policy allow and sbx policy deny to add or restrict access on top of the active preset. Changes take effect immediately. Rules apply to all sandboxes by default:

$ sbx policy allow network api.anthropic.com
$ sbx policy deny network ads.example.com

Pass --sandbox <name> to scope a rule to one sandbox:

$ sbx policy allow network --sandbox my-sandbox api.example.com
$ sbx policy deny network --sandbox my-sandbox ads.example.com

As of v0.38.0, you can also set per-sandbox deny rules at creation time with --deny-network on sbx create or sbx run, instead of adding them after the fact:

$ sbx create --deny-network ads.example.com claude .
$ sbx run --deny-network ads.example.com claude

Pass the flag multiple times to deny more than one host. Rules added this way appear in sbx policy ls <name> and can be removed with sbx policy rm network --sandbox <name> --resource <host>.

Specify multiple hosts in one command with a comma-separated list:

$ sbx policy allow network "api.anthropic.com,*.npmjs.org,*.pypi.org"

Remove a rule by resource or by rule ID:

$ sbx policy rm network --resource ads.example.com
$ sbx policy rm network --id 2d3c1f0e-4a73-4e05-bc9d-f2f9a4b50d67

To remove a sandbox-scoped rule, pass --sandbox <name>:

$ sbx policy rm network --sandbox my-sandbox --resource api.example.com

To inspect which policies are active and where they come from, use sbx policy ls. Use --source to filter by origin (local, org, kit), --decision to filter by outcome (allow, deny), and --wide for rule-level detail including rule IDs. To inspect a single policy or rule in full, use sbx policy inspect. See Monitoring.

Testing policy

Before running a sandbox, you can check whether the current policy would allow a network request with sbx policy check network:

$ sbx policy check network api.anthropic.com
Allowed: api.anthropic.com

$ sbx policy check network blocked.example.com
Denied: blocked.example.com

The target can be a hostname, a host:port pair, an IP address, or a URL. Bare hostnames and IP addresses are evaluated against port 443. This is useful for verifying custom rules or checking what the Locked Down preset blocks before you start an agent.

To check policy in the context of a specific sandbox:

$ sbx policy check network --sandbox my-sandbox api.example.com

Resetting

To remove all custom rules and start fresh with a new preset, use sbx policy reset:

$ sbx policy reset

This deletes the local policy store, restarts the daemon, and prompts you to choose a new preset. Running sandboxes stop when the daemon shuts down. Pass --force to skip the confirmation prompt:

$ sbx policy reset --force

Troubleshooting

Local allow rules have no effect

If rules you add with sbx policy allow don't change sandbox behavior, your organization likely has governance enabled. Run sbx policy ls to check: if the output starts with a Governance: status line showing Managed by <org>, org governance is active. When it's active, local allow rules are inactive. You can't use them to loosen restrictions the org policy imposes.

Inactive allow rules are hidden from sbx policy ls by default; run sbx policy ls --include-inactive to see them with an inactive status in the STATUS column.

When organization governance is active, only organization allow rules can grant access. Ask your admin to update the organization policy if you need access to an additional resource. Local deny rules remain active, so you can use sbx policy deny to restrict access further.

A domain is still blocked after adding an allow rule

If a domain remains blocked after you add a local allow rule, your organization likely enforces governance, which makes local allow rules inactive. Run sbx policy ls to check whether org governance is active; if the output starts with a Governance: status line showing Managed by <org>, it is. Add --include-inactive to confirm your rule shows an inactive status. If so, the block can only be lifted by updating the org policy in Docker Home or via the API.