ClaudeCage

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Run the SOTA AI coding agent in a portable, secure sandbox.

Claude Code is a state-of-the-art AI coding assistant. Unfortunately, its CLI is distributed as closed-source and obfuscated javascript. You don't know what it's doing. Is it reading your SSH keys? Is it indexing your photos? Is it planning some Skynet world domination from your ~/Downloads folder?

Probably not... but why risk it?

ClaudeCage solves this by packaging the claude-code CLI into a fully isolated, single-file container. It cannot access any part of your system except for the single project directory you are currently working in.

Features

• Secure Sandbox: Powered by Linux namespaces, the claude process is heavily restricted and cannot access your home directory, network information, or other processes.
• Single-File Portability: The entire environment—the claude binary, the bun runtime, and all dependencies—is packed into a single executable file. Download it, make it executable, and run it.
• No Host Dependencies: You do not need node, bun, or anything else installed on your system.
• Works on Most Linux Distros: Runs on virtually any modern Linux distribution.
• Better Performance: Runs at native speed. It runs even faster than official Claude Code thanks to the modern high performance javascript runtime: bun.
• Custom API Support: Easily configure it to use custom API endpoints, including OpenAI proxies.

How It Works

ClaudeCage is built using the RunImage project, which leverages Bubblewrap to create lightweight, unprivileged containers. This project provides a simple build script to automate the creation of a custom RunImage container specifically for claude-code.

Usage

1. Get ClaudeCage

Download pre-built binary

Download ClaudeCage binary and ClaudeCage.rcfg config file, copy both files to a location in your $PATH, like ~/.local/bin/.

Build from Source

First, clone the repository. The build script has no dependencies other than curl and standard coreutils.

git clone https://github.com/your-username/ClaudeCage.git
cd ClaudeCage
./build.sh

The script will download the necessary components and create two files in the current directory:

• ClaudeCage: The portable executable.
• ClaudeCage.rcfg: The sandbox configuration file.

2. Run ClaudeCage

Move both the ClaudeCage executable and the .rcfg file to a location in your $PATH, like ~/.local/bin/.

mv ClaudeCage ClaudeCage.rcfg ~/.local/bin/

Now, you can use it just like the regular claude command. Navigate to any project directory and run it. It will only have access to that directory.

cd /path/to/my/awesome-project
ClaudeCage "Refactor this function to be more efficient." # Claude Code now has access to this directory only

Configuration

Custom API Endpoints & Proxies

You can make claude-code use a custom API endpoint (including OpenAI proxies like claude-code-proxy) by setting environment variables before running ClaudeCage. claude-code-proxy is NOT integrated into this project.

# Example for using claude-code-proxy that translate API calls to OpenAI API format.
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="http://localhost:8082/"
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN="not-needed-when-using-local-proxy"
export ANTHROPIC_MODEL="anthropic/claude-sonnet-4"
export ANTHROPIC_SMALL_FAST_MODEL="google/gemini-2.0-flash"

ClaudeCage "What is the capital of Nebraska?"

See the official claude-code settings documentation for more details.

Acknowledgements

This project would be impossible without the fantastic work of the following open-source tools:

• RunImage for making single-file, portable Linux containers a reality.
• Bubblewrap for providing the low-level sandboxing technology.
• Bun as modern, high performance, node.js-compatible javascript runtime.
• claude-code-proxy for recommended OpenAI format API proxy.