Security model

Arcen is an agent that can call tools, run terminal commands, connect to APIs, and deliver messages. Treat the terminal backend and configured tools as the main execution boundary.

Approval and tool exposure

Keep toolsets scoped to the work the agent should perform. For custom capabilities, prefer plugins so they can be enabled, disabled, and reviewed independently.

Secrets

Store secrets in ~/.arcen/.env, not in docs, examples, or config.yaml.

OPENAI_API_KEY=...
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=...

Docker egress isolation

When running in Docker, the safest production posture is to keep internal services on an internal network and expose egress only through allowlisted paths.

networks:
  internal:
    driver: bridge
    internal: true
  egress:
    driver: bridge

Attach gateway services that need external APIs to the egress network. Keep internal-only services on the internal network.

Validation

Test that arbitrary outbound traffic fails from isolated containers and that required internal services still resolve.

docker compose exec gateway curl -sf --max-time 5 https://example.com
docker compose exec gateway curl -sf --max-time 5 http://arcen-dashboard:9119/health