Sandboxing AI Coding Agents (deepnoodle.ai)

A recent investigation highlights the importance of sandboxing features in AI coding agents like Claude Code, Codex, and Gemini CLI, which are pivotal tools for developers. The analysis reveals that while these tools offer sandboxing capabilities to isolate their operation environment, many users may not have them enabled by default. This is crucial, as the absence of proper sandboxing can expose sensitive data, like SSH keys and environment variables, and leave systems vulnerable to attacks through prompt injections or accidental command approvals. The article emphasizes that sandboxing serves as a vital safety mechanism, operating through filesystem and network isolation, but it is not foolproof. Users are warned about the risks of secret exposure and the inherent limitations of sandboxing, such as coarse domain allowlisting and the potential for trusted code to include malicious instructions. Given the varied default states of sandboxing across these CLIs—enabled in Codex while disabled in Claude Code and Gemini CLI—developers are advised to explicitly check and configure their sandbox settings based on their specific risk profiles. Regular updates of these tools are essential to ensure the latest security features are applied, reinforcing the necessity for developers to remain vigilant about the configuration of their AI coding agents.