Control Zero

Govern what your AI does, at runtime.

Evaluate every tool call your agent's host delivers, before it executes. Allow, warn, or block — and every decision is recorded.

Terminal$ pip install controlzero

No account required

Policy evaluatepre-execution

Tool call

Bash · rm -rf /var/data/customer-exports

Rule

block_destructive_shell

Result

Evaluating against signed policy bundle…

The problem

AI agents gain new capabilities every week. They invoke tools, query databases, write files, and call external APIs. Existing guardrails are probabilistic. They detect some bad outputs. They miss the actions in between.

The answer

Deterministic policy enforcement. Every action checked against your rules before execution. Allow, warn, or block, and every decision is recorded. You define the boundary. Control Zero enforces it. Every decision logged.

What do you want to govern?

Pick your starting point. Each path is the complete answer.

The Shift

AI agents are autonomous.
Your governance should be too.

Every week, AI agents gain new capabilities: writing code, managing infrastructure, accessing production systems. The tools they use (MCP, function calling, tool use) create new trust boundaries that traditional security cannot see.

Your LLM provider gives you model access controls. Your cloud provider gives you IAM. Neither governs what happens between the model and the tool call. That gap is where data leaks, unauthorized actions, and compliance violations live.

Control Zero fills that gap. A compiled policy engine that runs in your process. A transparent gateway proxy that evaluates every request. Open source SDKs for Python and Node.js with integrations for LangChain, CrewAI, AutoGen, and more.

Framework integrations
11+
Code changes for gateway mode
0
Policy refresh TTL
60s

Three modes. Two integration patterns. One product.

Both patterns ship on every tier

Pick where governance runs (Hosted our cloud, Hybrid mixed, or Local your infra) and pick how you wire it in (gateway proxy for zero code changes, SDK for fine-grained per-tool control). Every combination ships on the free tier. Local mode works without an account.

Gateway Proxy

HostedHybridLocal

Zero Code Changes

Point your AI agent at the Control Zero gateway instead of the LLM provider. Change one environment variable. Supports Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Bedrock, Vertex, Azure OpenAI, Ollama, DeepSeek, MoonshotAI, HuggingFace, Mistral, and Cohere. Transparent proxy with policy enforcement, request DLP scanning, model access control, cost caps, and full audit trail. Response DLP is off by default; enabling it is a deployment-wide operator setting, not a per-organization option on hosted.

12 providers · One config change

SDK Integration

HostedHybridLocal

Fine-grained Control

Wrap your AI calls with the open source SDK for per-tool governance, on-demand secret retrieval, and local policy evaluation. Works without an API key in local-only mode. Available for Python and Node.js.

3 lines · Of code to integrate

Developer API, MCP Server, and SDK

Governance as Code

REST API

Full policy management, audit queries, usage metering, and automation. Every dashboard action available programmatically.

MCP Server

Let Claude manage your Control Zero policies via prompt. Install in any MCP-compatible client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor) and your AI assistant becomes a Control Zero admin. Also governs tool calls across every tier. Install: npm config set @controlzero:registry https://npm.controlzero.ai && npm install @controlzero/mcp-server.

SDK

Python SDK with 11+ framework integrations: LangChain, LangGraph, CrewAI, AutoGen, Pydantic AI, and more. Node.js SDK (beta) covers LangChain, Vercel AI, and OpenAI Agents.

REST + MCP + SDK · Three integration paths

Three deployment modes

HostedSaaS

Actions flow through Control Zero cloud. Dashboard, audit log, and policy sync managed for you. Zero ops.

HybridControl plane + your data plane

Policies managed in our cloud. Enforcement runs on your infrastructure. Data stays in your VPC.

LocalSelf-managed / air-gap

Full platform on your infrastructure. No external calls. Same governance, fully offline.

Hooks on six agents. One policy.

Install the SDK once and one policy engine evaluates every call that reaches it. On Claude Code, Cursor IDE and Gemini CLI a deny rule stops the call before it runs, across all nine tool families. Kiro CLI blocks every family on direct tool calls, and from SDK 1.13.12 a deny on the use_subagent spawn stops the sub-agent being created -- on any earlier SDK that matcher is never installed, so such a rule silently never fires; a sub-agent's own calls are gated only when it runs an agent config carrying our hooks, so a sub-agent spawned with no explicit agent_name runs its own tool calls ungated once it starts -- the spawn is still gated, and that remaining gap is the host's. Codex CLI and Cursor CLI cover shell execution only -- those are the calls those hosts deliver to a hook: the other eight families never reach Control Zero, so they are neither blocked nor recorded. On Antigravity the adapter records every family and fails closed on a deny, and the host treats that deny as advisory in its headless modes, so the call may still run. Kiro IDE governs no tool call today, and that is our choice, not a vendor gap: the installer does write the hook Kiro IDE's current loader reads, but we ship it disabled pending a soak. Kiro IDE's deterministic block also requires the v2 hook provider; on the default v1 provider a deny is mediated by the model rather than enforced. The remaining agents are governed through the Control Zero MCP server, which is cooperative rather than hard enforcement.

Hook-governed (6) — decided before the call runsMCP-cooperative (4) — the client may ask first; never enforcement

Control Zero

Policy plane

Claude Code
Cursor
Gemini CLI
Codex CLI
Kiro
Antigravity
Windsurf
GitHub Copilot
Cline
JetBrains AI

Hook-governed agents

6

SDK languages

2

Built-in DLP detectors

64

Logos and trademarks are property of their respective owners. Listed for integration reference only.

How It Works

  1. 01

    Install

    Install the SDK or point your API base URL at the gateway. One package, one line of config. No infrastructure changes. Works with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, LangChain, CrewAI, AutoGen, MCP, and more.

  2. 02

    Define Policies

    Set rules from the dashboard, via API, or in a local JSON file. Model allowlists, cost caps, tool restrictions, PII filters. Policies are cryptographically signed and cached locally.

  3. 03

    Enforce and Audit

    Every request evaluated before it executes. Allow, deny, or warn on every call, and run the gateway in shadow mode to log decisions without enforcing them. Full audit trail on every decision. Searchable, exportable, compliance-ready.

Coverage Across AI Surfaces

AI governance spans SDKs, APIs, coding tools, and browsers. Coverage and maturity vary by integration, as marked below.

Coding Agent Hooks

GA(Cursor and Antigravity adapters BETA; Kiro IDE hook ships disabled)

On Claude Code, Gemini CLI and Cursor IDE a deny rule stops the call before it runs, across every tool family, and the same holds on Kiro CLI for direct tool calls -- and for sub-agent spawns from SDK 1.13.12, which on any earlier SDK is never wired as a matcher, so such a rule silently never fires. On Codex CLI and Cursor CLI that gate covers shell commands only: those are the calls the host delivers to a hook. On Kiro CLI a sub-agent's own tool calls are gated only when that sub-agent runs an agent config carrying our hooks -- one spawned without an explicit agent_name runs its own tool calls ungated once it starts, though the spawn itself is still gated, and that remaining gap is the host's. Kiro IDE governs no tool call today, and that is our choice, not a vendor gap: the installer does write the hook Kiro IDE's current loader reads, but we ship it disabled pending a soak. Kiro IDE's deterministic block also requires the v2 hook provider; on the default v1 provider a deny is mediated by the model rather than enforced. We separate those two because they mean different things to you.

See the coding agents network for full coverage.

Browser Extension

BETA(manual install; not in the Chrome Web Store)

DLP for AI chat interfaces in the browser. A deny rule cancels the paste before it lands and the send before it leaves; a mask rule rewrites the matched value in place.

Shadow AI Discovery (Scout)

COMING SOON

Planned discovery of ungoverned AI tools and endpoints operating outside your organization's governance perimeter.

Secrets Vault

BETA

Store provider keys encrypted at rest. SDK reads are policy-gated and can require human approval. Secret-read audit rows record the secret name, never the returned value.

DLP Scanning

Detect PII, secrets, and sensitive data in AI requests. Gateway response scanning is available when explicitly enabled. Includes custom regex rules and 64 built-in detectors across 12 pattern packs, including EU, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Policy Signing and Tamper Detection

Published policy bundles carry cryptographic signatures that SDKs verify before loading. Configure tamper handling to warn, deny one call, deny all calls, or quarantine a machine; tamper events are reported.

Air-Gap and Self-Managed

PRIVATE PREVIEW

Deploy the gateway, policy engine, audit store, dashboard, and admin CLI in your infrastructure. Licensing works offline with no phone-home; policies evaluate locally.

Role-Based Access Control

BETA

Assign roles to team members with granular permissions. Control who can create policies, view audit logs, manage agents, and configure enforcement modes.

Fleet Management

COMING SOON

Planned dashboard for enrolled devices, with status search and filtering plus per-device or fleet-wide policy-version and sync-interval configuration pushes.

Append-Only Audit Trail

Persisted governance decisions live in a searchable, exportable audit store with append-only enforcement. Alert channels for policy-denial events are configurable; outbound notification delivery is best-effort, so the audit record — not the alert — is the durable evidence.

Start governing your AI today.

5,000 governed actions per month on the free tier. No credit card required. Works without an account in local-only mode.

Get Started Free