Fence
Hacker ApprovedCommand sandbox in Developer tools
Lightweight CLI sandbox that restricts filesystem and network access for commands, aimed at people running AI coding agents. Caveat: it cannot wrap Flatpak or similar namespace-based sandbox tools.
Lightweight CLI sandbox that restricts filesystem and network access for commands, aimed at people running AI coding agents. Caveat: it cannot wrap Flatpak or similar namespace-based sandbox tools.
12 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 92%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 11 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Restricts filesystem and network access
“a lightweight process sandbox for CLI agents (or any command really) with filesystem and network restrictions”
Comment from 22 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: GoModel – an open-source AI gateway in Go; 44x lighter than LiteLLM” “The network/filesystem restriction approach is exactly what's needed for running untrusted commands safely.”
Comment from 21 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Fence – Sandbox CLI commands with network/filesystem restrictions” “Fence handles well supply-chain scripts that phone home, tools that write broadly across your filesystem”
Comment from 21 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Fence – Sandbox CLI commands with network/filesystem restrictions” Easy to configure and extend
“The `code` template already allowlists npm, PyPI, crates.io, and Go modules, easy to extend for others by adding to allowedDomains in your config.”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Fence – Sandbox CLI commands with network/filesystem restrictions” “Good call on allowing importing of existing .claude/settings.json, makes my life easier on personal projects.”
Comment from 20 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Fence – Sandbox CLI commands with network/filesystem restrictions” “this one seems relatively easy to configure”
Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Fence – Sandbox CLI commands with network/filesystem restrictions” Adds controls on top of sandbox-runtime
“Fence adds additional controls on top of what is available on sandbox-runtime”
Comment from 25 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Fence – Sandbox CLI commands with network/filesystem restrictions” “Fence which was already doing the hard kernel work really well”
Comment from 13 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Userland local agent sandbox with real-time network control dashboard” Safer for running untrusted commands
“The network/filesystem restriction approach is exactly what's needed for running untrusted commands safely.”
Comment from 21 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Fence – Sandbox CLI commands with network/filesystem restrictions” “Fence handles well supply-chain scripts that phone home, tools that write broadly across your filesystem”
Comment from 21 Jan 2026 in “Show HN: Fence – Sandbox CLI commands with network/filesystem restrictions”
What people said
14 of the 18 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Pretty nice product as I recall, lots of features to make the "Desktop" more or less dynamic.”
“it's a nice middle ground”
“a lightweight process sandbox for CLI agents (or any command really) with filesystem and network restrictions”
“I wanted a "permission manager" that defines a set of policies agnostic to coding agents.”
“Fence which was already doing the hard kernel work really well”
“Runtime Fence gives you emergency stop controls for any AI agent”
“this one seems relatively easy to configure”
“The `code` template already allowlists npm, PyPI, crates.io, and Go modules, easy to extend for others by adding to allowedDomains in your config.”
“Yes, Fence is designed for exactly this”
“Fence can't wrap Flatpak (or similar namespace-based sandbox tools) in a useful way”
“Fence adds additional controls on top of what is available on sandbox-runtime”
“Fence handles well supply-chain scripts that phone home, tools that write broadly across your filesystem”
“The network/filesystem restriction approach is exactly what's needed for running untrusted commands safely.”
“Good call on allowing importing of existing .claude/settings.json, makes my life easier on personal projects.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.