Transom

Sandboxing

Also called: isolation, containment

Running an agent, tool, or MCP server in a constrained environment so a compromise cannot reach the host or other components.

Sandboxing ranges from OS-level (containers, VMs, seccomp, restricted users) to network-level (egress filtering, no access to the metadata endpoint or internal services) to MCP-level (isolating each connected server's context and credentials from the others). The goal is that "the agent got prompt-injected" does not become "the host is compromised" or "every other server's secrets are gone."

Why it matters

Because you cannot reliably stop the injection, containment is where a lot of real safety comes from. A sandboxed local MCP server that gets rug-pulled can still only damage what is inside its box. Sandboxing is most effective combined with least privilege — a small box with few keys in it.

Exposure map

Live counts of instances showing this pattern will appear here once the exposure map is collecting data.

Related terms

Added 2026-09-02. Last reviewed 2026-09-02. Definitions in this space are evolving; entries are dated so revisions stay legible.