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Agent Governance Toolkit

Microsoft's open-source toolkit for enforcing policy, identity, sandboxing and audit records on autonomous AI agents before they reach production.

Open source

What is Agent Governance Toolkit?

Agent Governance Toolkit (AGT) is an open-source Microsoft project that puts deterministic controls around AI agents instead of relying on prompt instructions. Each tool call, outgoing message and delegation passes through application code and is checked against a YAML policy before it runs, so a denied action such as dropping a table cannot happen. Each decision is written to a tamper-evident audit trail, and agents get their own identities so a shared API key no longer hides who did what. The project ships as separate packages for the policy engine, agent mesh, runtime sandboxing with privilege rings, SRE tooling such as a kill switch and chaos testing, and OWASP compliance checks. It installs with pip for Python and also has SDKs for TypeScript, .NET, Rust and Go, plus plugins for Claude Code and GitHub Copilot CLI. It is free to use, and the README labels it a public preview that may have breaking changes before general availability.

Use cases

  • Block destructive agent tool calls
  • Require human approval for risky actions
  • Audit every agent decision
  • Scan prompts for injection weaknesses
  • Check agents against OWASP guidance
  • Find unregistered shadow AI agents

Who it's for

  • AI agent developers
  • Platform engineers
  • Security teams
  • Compliance teams

Why use Agent Governance Toolkit

  • Enforcement happens in code before the model's intent reaches a tool, so safety does not depend on the model following a prompt.
  • Separate agent identities make incident review possible when several agents would otherwise share one API key.
  • Audit records capture the active policy, the request and the allow or deny reason, which gives auditors something concrete to inspect.
  • Every layer is optional, so a team can start with govern() and add identity, sandboxing or SRE controls later.

Agent Governance Toolkit features

  • YAML policies that allow, deny or require approval per action
  • govern() wrapper that checks and logs each tool call
  • Agent identity using SPIFFE, DID and mTLS
  • Tamper-evident audit log of every decision
  • Runtime sandboxing with four privilege rings
  • Kill switch, SLO monitoring and chaos testing
  • agt CLI for doctor, verify, lint-policy and red-team scan
  • MCP security gateway with tool poisoning detection
  • Shadow AI discovery across processes, configs and repos
  • SDKs for Python, TypeScript, .NET, Rust and Go

Agent Governance Toolkit integrations

  • Microsoft Agent Framework
  • Semantic Kernel
  • AutoGen
  • LangGraph
  • LangChain
  • CrewAI
  • OpenAI Agents SDK
  • Claude Code
  • Google ADK
  • LlamaIndex
  • Haystack
  • Mastra
  • Dify
  • Azure AI Foundry
  • GitHub Copilot CLI

How to get started with Agent Governance Toolkit

  1. Install the package with pip install "agent-governance-toolkit[full]" (Python 3.11 or newer), or pick the SDK for your language.
  2. Write a policy.yaml with rules that allow, deny or require approval for action types.
  3. Wrap an existing tool with govern(my_tool, policy="policy.yaml") so each call is evaluated and logged.
  4. Blocked calls raise GovernanceDenied with the rule that stopped them, and each decision lands in the audit trail.
  5. Run agt verify and agt lint-policy in CI to check OWASP coverage and policy files.

Agent Governance Toolkit limitations

  • Public preview: breaking changes may occur before general availability
  • Python has the full stack; the other four language SDKs cover core governance only
  • Quick-start imports need the [full] extra, since the base wheel installs only the compliance CLI

Agent Governance Toolkit pricing

Agent Governance Toolkit is open source, so you can use and self-host it for free.

Prices can change and may vary by country or exclude tax. Check the official pricing page.

Agent Governance Toolkit alternatives

The main Agent Governance Toolkit alternatives listed on Debuly are NeMo Guardrails, Guardrails AI, Lakera Guard, LightAgent, Speakeasy AI Control Plane and Agno. The table compares pricing and platforms; order is A–Z.

Agent Governance Toolkit compared with its alternatives
ToolPricingStarting pricePlatforms
Agent Governance ToolkitOpen source—CLI, API
AgnoOpen source—API, Web, Self-hosted, CLI
Guardrails AIOpen source—Self-hosted, API, CLI
Lakera GuardFreemium—Web, API, Self-hosted
LightAgentOpen source—API, Self-hosted
NeMo GuardrailsOpen source—API, Self-hosted, Kubernetes
Speakeasy AI Control PlanePaid$0.35, usage-basedWeb, API, Self-hosted
  1. Agno

    Python framework and AgentOS runtime for building agents, teams and workflows, then serving them as an API with a control plane.

  2. Guardrails AI

    Open-source framework that wraps LLM apps with validators for PII, hallucination and policy checks, plus Snowglobe simulation testing.

  3. Lakera Guard

    Runtime AI guardrails API that screens LLM and agent traffic for prompt attacks, data leakage and unsafe content, with a free Community tier.

  4. LightAgent

    Compact open-source Python framework for building agents with tools, memory, MCP, tracing, guardrails and multi-step workflows.

  5. NeMo Guardrails

    Open-source Python library from NVIDIA that adds programmable safety, topic and security rails between your app and an LLM.

  6. Speakeasy AI Control Plane

    Governance layer between AI agents and company systems that connects MCP servers, filters risky data, scopes access by role and logs every tool call.

Agent Governance Toolkit FAQ

Is Agent Governance Toolkit free?

Yes. It is an open-source project you install from PyPI, npm, NuGet, crates.io or Go modules, and no paid plans are listed.

Does Agent Governance Toolkit have an API or SDKs?

Yes. There are SDKs for Python, TypeScript, .NET, Rust and Go, plus an agt command-line tool and plugins for Claude Code and GitHub Copilot CLI.

Which agent frameworks does Agent Governance Toolkit work with?

The README lists Microsoft Agent Framework, Semantic Kernel, AutoGen, LangGraph, LangChain, CrewAI, the OpenAI Agents SDK, Google ADK, LlamaIndex, Haystack, Mastra and Dify, among others.

Is Agent Governance Toolkit ready for production?

The repository calls it a production-quality public preview, and it warns that breaking changes may arrive before general availability.

Who should use Agent Governance Toolkit?

Teams running agents that call tools, browse the web or query databases, especially platform, security and compliance groups that need enforceable controls and records.

What are alternatives to Agent Governance Toolkit?

Related tools include NeMo Guardrails, Guardrails AI and LlamaFirewall, which also add safety controls around LLM applications and agents.

Sources & verification

Facts on this page come from the official sources below, each with the date we read it. Written by Debuly; the vendor did not review this page.

SourceTypeAccessed
github.com/microsoft/agent-governance-toolkitofficial

Image credits

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