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Safety Model

DaoFlow's safety model ensures AI agents can be useful without being dangerous.

Core Principles

PrincipleImplementation
Read-only by defaultAgent role has no write scopes
Explicit elevationWrite scopes must be explicitly granted per-token
No self-elevationAgents cannot modify their own permissions
Preview before execute--dry-run and planning APIs available
Confirmation required--yes flag required for mutations
Full audit trailEvery action logged with agent identity
Structured denialsPermission errors include required scopes
Rate limitingToken-level rate limits prevent runaway loops

Defense Layers

Layer 1: Role-based access (agent role = read-only default)
Layer 2: Token scope restriction (intersection with role)
Layer 3: CLI guardrails (--yes required, --dry-run available)
Layer 4: API lane separation (read / planning / command)
Layer 5: Approval gates (human-in-the-loop for risky actions)
Layer 6: Audit trail (immutable log of all actions)
Layer 7: Rate limiting (prevent automation bugs)

What Agents Cannot Do

By default, agents cannot:

  • Deploy without explicit deploy:start scope
  • Access unmasked secrets
  • Modify their own permissions
  • Open terminal sessions
  • Override policy guardrails
  • Delete servers, projects, or backups
  • Approve their own requests

Adversarial Input Protection

The CLI and API protect against malicious input:

  • Shell metacharacters are rejected
  • Path traversals are blocked
  • Control characters are stripped
  • Excessively long inputs are truncated with clear errors
  • User input is never interpolated into shell commands