Shell Execution Sandbox

Disclaimer — your machine, your risk. shell-execute runs real processes on the host (or in an optional Docker sandbox you configure). Allowlists and blocklists reduce accidents but are not a guarantee. Only enable for trusted codebases and accounts; review allowed command names and working-directory rules before production use. Cortex exposes this as an explicit opt-in in the Lab builder with the same warning.

Agent objective

Produce a builder with shell execution enabled, the correct allowlist for the task, and appropriate safety config — without exposing destructive commands.

When to load this skill

• Agent needs to run terminal commands (git, file operations, build tools)
• Agent generates and executes code (Node, Bun, Python)
• Task requires reading directory structure, running tests, or processing files
• CI/CD or automation agent workflows

Implementation baseline

const agent = await ReactiveAgents.create()
  .withProvider("anthropic")
  .withReasoning({ defaultStrategy: "plan-execute-reflect", maxIterations: 15 })
  .withTools({
    allowedTools: ["shell-execute", "file-read", "checkpoint"],
    terminal: true, // registers the shell-execute handler
  })
  .withSystemPrompt(`
    You have access to a shell. Use it to explore the codebase and run commands.
    Always checkpoint important findings before continuing.
  `)
  .build();

Default allowlist

The shell-execute tool blocks any command not on the allowlist. Default allowed commands:

git, ls, cat, grep, find, echo, printf
mkdir, cp, mv, touch
wc, head, tail, sort, uniq, cut, tr, tee, diff, sed, awk, jq
pwd, date, which, basename, dirname, test, true, false
seq, gzip, gunzip, zip, unzip

Explicitly excluded: rm, chmod, chown — too destructive for agent sandboxes.

Key patterns

Opt-in commands for build tasks

Build tools (Node, Bun, npm, Python, curl) are available but not on by default:

// Available opt-in commands: node, bun, npm, npx, python, python3, curl, env, xargs, tar
// Add via ShellExecuteConfig.additionalCommands when registering the tool:
import { shellExecuteTool, shellExecuteHandler } from "@reactive-agents/tools";

const shellTool = {
  definition: shellExecuteTool,
  handler: shellExecuteHandler({
    additionalCommands: ["bun", "node", "npm"],
    timeoutMs: 60_000,        // default 30s — increase for build commands
    maxOutputChars: 8_000,    // default 4000
    cwd: "/workspace",        // default to project root
  }),
};

const agent = await ReactiveAgents.create()
  .withTools({ tools: [shellTool], allowedTools: ["shell-execute"] })
  .build();

Docker-isolated code execution

When dockerEscalation is enabled, inline code (Node --eval, Bun -e, Python -c) automatically routes through a Docker sandbox:

shellExecuteHandler({
  additionalCommands: ["node", "python3"],
  dockerEscalation: {
    enabled: true,
    // Inline code execution is fully isolated in a fresh container
  },
})

Read-only shell (safest config)

shellExecuteHandler({
  allowedCommands: ["ls", "cat", "grep", "find", "head", "tail", "wc"],
  // Only listing and reading — no writes, no execution
})

Audit logging

shellExecuteHandler({
  onAudit: (entry: ShellAuditEntry) => {
    logger.info("shell-execute", {
      command: entry.command,
      exitCode: entry.exitCode,
      durationMs: entry.durationMs,
    });
  },
})

Shell tool properties

The shell-execute built-in tool has these characteristics:

Property	Value
riskLevel	"high"
requiresApproval	true
category	"system"
timeoutMs (default)	30,000ms
maxOutputChars (default)	4,000 chars
MAX_COMMAND_LENGTH	4,096 chars

Builder API reference

Method	Key params	Notes
.withTools({ tools, allowedTools })	include "shell-execute"	Register custom handler for config
.withTools()	no args	Enables shell-execute but with requiresApproval: true

Pitfalls

• shell-execute has requiresApproval: true by default — in automated pipelines, register a custom handler with requiresApproval: false if human approval flow is not wired
• Commands are allowlisted by executable name only (first word) — git is allowed regardless of sub-command args; curl is opt-in
• MAX_COMMAND_LENGTH is 4,096 — very long piped commands will be rejected
• Docker daemon must be running for dockerEscalation — check before enabling in CI
• rm, chmod, chown are hard-excluded and cannot be added via additionalCommands
• maxOutputChars: 4000 truncates long output — increase for commands that produce large output (e.g., git log, find on large trees)