Sandcastle

Describe what you want. Go home. Sandcastle ships it. Production-ready workflow orchestrator for AI agents. 7 AI providers with auto-failover, 22 step types including Claude Managed Agents, 15 agent templates, 4 OCR engines, EU AI Act compliance, and a full-featured dashboard. Define workflows in YAML or let AI design them for you.

Try the Live Demo (no backend needed)

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Table of Contents

• Why Sandcastle?
• Start Local. Scale When Ready.
• Quickstart
• MCP Integration
• Features
• Pluggable Sandbox Backends
• Browser Step - LightPanda & Browserbase
• Multi-Provider Model Routing
• 63 Built-in Integrations
• Workflow Engine
• 21 Step Types
• Managed Agents
• Human Approval Gates
• Self-Optimizing Workflows (AutoPilot)
• Hierarchical Workflows (Workflow-as-Step)
• Policy Engine
• Privacy Router (PII Redaction)
• Cost-Latency Optimizer
• Cost Estimation API
• EU AI Act Compliance
• Tamper-Evident Audit Trail
• OpenTelemetry
• Agent Memory
• Evaluations
• Directory Input & CSV Export
• Community Hub
• Real-time Event Stream
• Run Time Machine
• Budget Guardrails
• Security
• A2A & AG-UI Protocols
• Dashboard
• API Reference
• Multi-Tenant Auth
• Webhooks
• Architecture
• Configuration
• Development
• Acknowledgements
• License

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Why Sandcastle?

AI agent frameworks give you building blocks - LLM calls, tool use, maybe a graph. But when you start building real products, the glue code piles up fast:

• "Step A scrapes, step B enriches, step C scores." - You need workflow orchestration.
• "Fan out over 50 leads in parallel, then merge." - You need a DAG engine.
• "Bill the customer per enrichment, track costs per run." - You need usage metering.
• "Alert me if the agent fails, retry with backoff." - You need production error handling.
• "Run this every 6 hours and POST results to Slack." - You need scheduling and webhooks.
• "A human should review this before the agent continues." - You need approval gates.
• "Block the output if it contains PII or leaked secrets." - You need policy enforcement.
• "Pick the cheapest model that still meets quality SLOs." - You need cost-latency optimization.
• "Use Claude for quality, GPT for speed, Gemini for cost." - You need multi-provider routing.
• "Run on E2B cloud, Docker locally, or Cloudflare at the edge." - You need pluggable runtimes.
• "Connect to Slack, Jira, GitHub, Salesforce, SAP..." - You need integrations.
• "Show me what's running, what failed, and what needs attention." - You need a dashboard.

Sandcastle handles all of that. Define workflows in YAML, pick your sandbox backend, choose your models, and ship to production.

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Start Local. Scale When Ready.

No Docker, no database server, no Redis. Install, run, done.

pip install sandcastle-ai
sandcastle init        # asks for API keys, picks sandbox backend, writes .env
sandcastle serve       # starts API + dashboard on one port

You'll need API keys for your chosen setup:

• ANTHROPIC_API_KEY - get one at console.anthropic.com (for Claude models)
• E2B_API_KEY - get one at e2b.dev (for E2B cloud sandboxes - free tier available)

Or use the docker backend (needs Docker installed) or local backend (dev only, no sandbox isolation) and skip the E2B key.

Dashboard at http://localhost:8080, API at http://localhost:8080/api, 23 workflow templates included, 63 integrations ready to connect.

Sandcastle auto-detects your environment. No DATABASE_URL? It uses SQLite. No REDIS_URL? Jobs run in-process. No S3 credentials? Files go to disk. Same code, same API, same dashboard - you just add connection strings when you're ready to scale.

 Prototype                 Staging                   Production
 ---------                 -------                   ----------
 SQLite                    PostgreSQL                PostgreSQL
 In-process queue    -->   Redis + arq          -->  Redis + arq
 Local filesystem         Local filesystem          S3 / MinIO
 Single process           Single process            API + Worker + Scheduler

	Local Mode	Production Mode
Database	SQLite (auto-created in ./data/)	PostgreSQL 16
Job Queue	In-process (asyncio.create_task)	Redis 7 + arq workers
Storage	Filesystem (./data/)	S3 / MinIO
Scheduler	In-memory APScheduler	In-memory APScheduler
Setup time	30 seconds	5 minutes
Config needed	Just API keys	API keys + connection strings
Best for	Prototyping, solo devs, demos	Teams, production, multi-tenant

Ready to scale?

When local mode isn't enough anymore, upgrade one piece at a time. Each step is independent - do only what you need.

Step 1 - PostgreSQL (concurrent users, data durability)

# Install and start PostgreSQL (macOS example)
brew install postgresql@16
brew services start postgresql@16

# Create a database
createdb sandcastle

# Add to .env
echo 'DATABASE_URL=postgresql+asyncpg://localhost/sandcastle' >> .env

# Run migrations
pip install sandcastle-ai  # if not installed yet
alembic upgrade head

# Restart
sandcastle serve

Your SQLite data stays in ./data/. Sandcastle starts fresh with PostgreSQL - existing local runs are not migrated.

Step 2 - Redis (background workers, parallel runs)

# Install and start Redis (macOS example)
brew install redis
brew services start redis

# Add to .env
echo 'REDIS_URL=redis://localhost:6379' >> .env

# Restart API + start a worker in a second terminal
sandcastle serve
sandcastle worker

With Redis, workflows run in background workers instead of in-process. You can run multiple workers for parallel execution.

Step 3 - S3 / MinIO (artifact storage)

# Add to .env
echo 'STORAGE_BACKEND=s3' >> .env
echo 'S3_BUCKET=sandcastle-artifacts' >> .env
echo 'AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=...' >> .env
echo 'AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=...' >> .env
# For MinIO, also set: S3_ENDPOINT_URL=http://localhost:9000

# Restart
sandcastle serve

Or skip all that and use Docker:

docker compose up -d   # PostgreSQL + Redis + API + Worker, all configured

---

Quickstart

Production Mode - Docker (recommended)

One command. PostgreSQL, Redis, API server, and background worker - all configured.

git clone https://github.com/gizmax/Sandcastle.git
cd Sandcastle

# Add your API keys
cat > .env << 'EOF'
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
E2B_API_KEY=e2b_...
SANDBOX_BACKEND=e2b
WEBHOOK_SECRET=your-signing-secret
EOF

docker compose up -d

That's it. Sandcastle is running at http://localhost:8080 with PostgreSQL 16, Redis 7, auto-migrations, and an arq background worker.

docker compose ps       # check status
docker compose logs -f  # tail logs
docker compose down     # stop everything

Production Mode - Manual

If you prefer running without Docker:

git clone https://github.com/gizmax/Sandcastle.git
cd Sandcastle

cp .env.example .env   # configure all connection strings

uv sync

# Start infrastructure (your own PostgreSQL + Redis)
# Set DATABASE_URL and REDIS_URL in .env

# Run database migrations
uv run alembic upgrade head

# Start the API server (serves API + dashboard on one port)
uv run python -m sandcastle serve

# Start the async worker (separate terminal)
uv run python -m sandcastle worker

Your First Workflow

# Run a workflow asynchronously
curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/workflows/run \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "workflow": "lead-enrichment",
    "input": {
      "target_url": "https://example.com",
      "max_depth": 3
    },
    "callback_url": "https://your-app.com/api/done"
  }'

# Response: { "data": { "run_id": "a1b2c3d4-...", "status": "queued" } }

Or run synchronously and wait for the result:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/workflows/run/sync \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "workflow": "lead-enrichment",
    "input": { "target_url": "https://example.com" }
  }'

Python SDK

Install from PyPI and use Sandcastle programmatically from any Python app:

pip install sandcastle-ai

from sandcastle import SandcastleClient

client = SandcastleClient(base_url="http://localhost:8080", api_key="sc_...")

# Run a workflow and wait for completion
run = client.run("lead-enrichment",
    input={"target_url": "https://example.com"},
    wait=True,
)
print(run.status)          # "completed"
print(run.total_cost_usd)  # 0.12
print(run.outputs)         # {"lead_score": 87, "tier": "A", ...}

# List recent runs
for r in client.list_runs(status="completed", limit=5).items:
    print(f"{r.workflow_name}: {r.status}")

# Stream live events from a running workflow
for event in client.stream(run.run_id):
    print(event)

# Replay a failed step with a different model
new_run = client.fork(run.run_id, from_step="score", changes={"model": "opus"})

Async variant available for asyncio apps:

from sandcastle import AsyncSandcastleClient

async with AsyncSandcastleClient() as client:
    run = await client.run("lead-enrichment", input={...}, wait=True)

CLI

The sandcastle command gives you full control from the terminal:

# Interactive setup wizard (API keys, .env, workflows/)
sandcastle init

# Start the server (API + dashboard on one port)
sandcastle serve

# Run a workflow
sandcastle run lead-enrichment -i target_url=https://example.com

# Run and wait for result
sandcastle run lead-enrichment -i target_url=https://example.com --wait

# Check run status
sandcastle status <run-id>

# Stream live logs
sandcastle logs <run-id> --follow

# List runs, workflows, schedules
sandcastle ls runs --status completed --limit 10
sandcastle ls workflows
sandcastle ls schedules

# Manage schedules
sandcastle schedule create lead-enrichment "0 9 * * *" -i target_url=https://example.com
sandcastle schedule delete <schedule-id>

# Community Hub - browse and install templates
sandcastle hub search "lead scoring"
sandcastle hub install competitive-radar
sandcastle hub collections
sandcastle hub install-collection marketing-pro

# Cancel a running workflow
sandcastle cancel <run-id>

# Health check
sandcastle doctor

Connection defaults to http://localhost:8080. Override with --url or SANDCASTLE_URL env var. Auth via --api-key or SANDCASTLE_API_KEY.

MCP Integration

Sandcastle ships with a built-in MCP (Model Context Protocol) server. This lets Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, and any MCP-compatible client interact with Sandcastle directly from the chat interface - run workflows, check status, manage schedules, browse results.

flowchart LR
    Client["Claude Desktop\nCursor / Windsurf"]
    MCP["sandcastle mcp\n(MCP server)"]
    API["localhost:8080\n(sandcastle serve)"]

    Client -->|stdio| MCP -->|HTTP| API

Install the MCP extra:

pip install sandcastle-ai[mcp]

Available MCP Tools

Tool	Description
run_workflow	Run a saved workflow by name with optional input data and wait mode
run_workflow_yaml	Run a workflow from inline YAML definition
get_run_status	Get detailed run status including all step results
cancel_run	Cancel a queued or running workflow
list_runs	List runs with optional status and workflow filters
save_workflow	Save a workflow YAML definition to the server
create_schedule	Create a cron schedule for a workflow
delete_schedule	Delete a workflow schedule

Available MCP Resources

URI	Description
sandcastle://workflows	Read-only list of all available workflows
sandcastle://schedules	Read-only list of all active schedules
sandcastle://health	Server health status (sandbox backend, DB, Redis)

Client Configuration

Claude Desktop - add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sandcastle": {
      "command": "sandcastle",
      "args": ["mcp"],
      "env": {
        "SANDCASTLE_URL": "http://localhost:8080",
        "SANDCASTLE_API_KEY": "sc_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor - add to .cursor/mcp.json in your project root:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sandcastle": {
      "command": "sandcastle",
      "args": ["mcp", "--url", "http://localhost:8080"]
    }
  }
}

Windsurf - add to ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "sandcastle": {
      "command": "sandcastle",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

The MCP server uses stdio transport (spawned as a child process by the client). It requires a running sandcastle serve instance to connect to. Connection is configured via --url / --api-key CLI args or SANDCASTLE_URL / SANDCASTLE_API_KEY env vars.

What You Can Do from Chat

Once connected, ask your AI assistant to:

• "Run the lead-enrichment workflow for https://example.com"
• "What's the status of my last run?"
• "List all failed runs from today"
• "Create a schedule to run data-sync every day at 9am"
• "Cancel run abc-123"
• "Save this workflow YAML to the server"
• "Show me all available workflows"
• "Check if Sandcastle is healthy"

---

Features

Capability
Pluggable sandbox backends (E2B, Docker, Local, Cloudflare)	Yes
Multi-provider model routing (Claude, OpenAI, MiniMax, Google/Gemini, Mistral, Ollama, oMLX)	Yes
63 built-in integrations across 9 categories	Yes
21 step types (standard, llm, http, code, race, sensor, gate, parse, managed-agent...)	Yes
Zero-config local mode	Yes
DAG workflow orchestration	Yes
Parallel step execution	Yes
Run Time Machine (replay/fork)	Yes
Budget guardrails	Yes
Run cancellation	Yes
Idempotent run requests	Yes
Persistent storage (S3/MinIO)	Yes
Webhook callbacks (HMAC-signed)	Yes
Scheduled / cron agents	Yes
Retry logic with exponential backoff	Yes
Dead letter queue with full replay	Yes
Per-run cost tracking	Yes
SSE live streaming	Yes
Multi-tenant API keys	Yes
Python SDK + async client	Yes
CLI tool	Yes
MCP server (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf)	Yes
Docker one-command deploy	Yes
Dashboard with real-time monitoring	Yes
23 built-in workflow templates	Yes
118 community templates (Community Hub)	Yes
Visual workflow builder	Yes
Directory input (file processing)	Yes
CSV export per step	Yes
Human approval gates	Yes
Self-optimizing workflows (AutoPilot)	Yes
Hierarchical workflows (workflow-as-step)	Yes
Policy engine (PII redaction, secret guard)	Yes
Privacy router (PII redaction, 7 patterns)	Yes
Pre-run cost estimation (POST /runs/estimate)	Yes
Cost-latency optimizer (SLO-based routing)	Yes
EU AI Act compliance (risk classification, transparency reports, Annex IV)	Yes
Tamper-evident audit trail (SHA-256 hash chain)	Yes
OpenTelemetry instrumentation (workflow + step spans)	Yes
Browser modes (LightPanda headless, Browserbase cloud)	Yes
Concurrency control (rate limiter, semaphores)	Yes
Agent memory (semantic search, decay, conflict detection)	Yes
Evaluations (test suites, assertions, pass rate tracking)	Yes
Credential encryption (Fernet AES-128-CBC)	Yes
API key rotation + IP allowlisting	Yes
Security headers + CSP	Yes
Distributed rate limiting (in-memory + Redis)	Yes
A2A protocol (Google Agent-to-Agent)	Yes
AG-UI protocol (CopilotKit SSE streaming)	Yes
Guided onboarding wizard	Yes
Global search (runs, workflows, integrations)	Yes
Health insights (system health score + per-page banners)	Yes
License key system (community / pro / enterprise tiers)	Yes

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Pluggable Sandbox Backends

Sandcastle uses the Sandshore runtime with pluggable backends for agent execution. Each step runs inside an isolated sandbox - choose the backend that fits your needs:

Backend	Description	Best For
e2b (default)	Cloud sandboxes via E2B SDK	Production, zero-infra setup
docker	Local Docker containers with seccomp + CapDrop ALL	Self-hosted, air-gapped environments
local	Direct subprocess on the host (no isolation)	Development and testing only
cloudflare	Edge sandboxes via Cloudflare Workers	Low-latency, globally distributed

# Set in .env or via sandcastle init
SANDBOX_BACKEND=e2b        # default
SANDBOX_BACKEND=docker     # requires Docker + pip install sandcastle-ai[docker]
SANDBOX_BACKEND=local      # dev only, no isolation
SANDBOX_BACKEND=cloudflare # requires deployed CF Worker

All backends share the same SandboxBackend protocol - same YAML, same API, same dashboard. Switch backends without changing workflows.

Docker hardening: When using the Docker backend, containers run with all capabilities dropped, a seccomp profile restricting syscalls, PID limits (default 100), CPU quotas (default 50%), memory limits (default 512 MiB), and an unprivileged user (1000:1000). All configurable via environment variables.

---

Browser Step - LightPanda & Browserbase

The built-in browser step type supports three modes for web automation:

Mode	Description	Best For
playwright (default)	Chromium via Playwright (pre-baked in Dockerfile)	General web automation
lightpanda	10x faster headless browsing via CDP (no Chromium)	High-throughput scraping
browserbase	Cloud-hosted browser sessions, zero cold-start	Production scraping, scalable

steps:
  - id: "scrape"
    type: browser
    browser:
      mode: lightpanda          # "playwright" | "lightpanda" | "browserbase"
      url: "https://example.com"
      actions:
        - click: "#load-more"
        - extract: ".results"

For Browserbase, set BROWSERBASE_API_KEY and BROWSERBASE_PROJECT_ID in your environment. LightPanda requires the lightpanda binary on PATH or set LIGHTPANDA_PATH.

---

Multi-Provider Model Routing

Use different AI providers per step. Claude for quality-critical tasks, cheaper models for simple scoring, or mix providers in a single workflow:

Model ID	Provider	Runner	Pricing (per 1M tokens)
sonnet	Claude (Anthropic)	Claude Agent SDK	$3 in / $15 out
opus	Claude (Anthropic)	Claude Agent SDK	$15 in / $75 out
haiku	Claude (Anthropic)	Claude Agent SDK	$0.80 in / $4 out
openai/codex-mini	OpenAI	OpenAI-compatible	$0.25 in / $2 out
openai/codex	OpenAI	OpenAI-compatible	$1.25 in / $10 out
minimax/m2.5	MiniMax	OpenAI-compatible	$0.30 in / $1.20 out
google/gemini-2.5-pro	Google (via OpenRouter)	OpenAI-compatible	$4 in / $20 out
omlx/llama-4-scout	oMLX (local)	OpenAI-compatible	Free (self-hosted)
omlx/mistral-small	oMLX (local)	OpenAI-compatible	Free (self-hosted)
omlx/gemma-3	oMLX (local)	OpenAI-compatible	Free (self-hosted)
omlx/qwen-3	oMLX (local)	OpenAI-compatible	Free (self-hosted)

steps:
  - id: "research"
    model: opus                    # Claude for deep research
    prompt: "Research {input.company} thoroughly."

  - id: "score"
    depends_on: ["research"]
    model: haiku                   # Claude Haiku for cheap scoring
    prompt: "Score this lead 1-100."

  - id: "classify"
    depends_on: ["research"]
    model: openai/codex-mini       # OpenAI for classification
    prompt: "Classify the industry."

Automatic failover: if a provider returns 429 or 5xx, Sandcastle retries with the next provider in the fallback chain. Per-key cooldown prevents hammering a failing endpoint.

---

Universal Advisor

All AI-powered features (workflow generation, evolution, quality evaluation, error explanation) use a configurable advisor LLM. By default, Sandcastle uses Claude - but you can switch to any supported provider:

Provider	Region	Env Vars
Anthropic (Claude)	US	ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
Mistral	EU	MISTRAL_API_KEY
OpenAI	US	OPENAI_API_KEY
Google (via OpenRouter)	US	OPENROUTER_API_KEY
MiniMax	US	MINIMAX_API_KEY
Ollama (local)	Local	None required
oMLX (local)	Local	None required

# Switch to Mistral (EU data residency)
export SANDCASTLE_ADVISOR_PROVIDER=mistral
export SANDCASTLE_ADVISOR_MODEL=mistral-large-latest
export MISTRAL_API_KEY=your-key

# Switch to local Ollama (100% private, no cloud)
export SANDCASTLE_ADVISOR_PROVIDER=ollama
export SANDCASTLE_ADVISOR_MODEL=llama3.2

EU Data Residency Mode

Enforce that all AI processing stays within EU borders:

export DATA_RESIDENCY=eu

When active, only EU-region providers (Mistral) and local providers (Ollama, oMLX) are allowed. Attempts to use US providers will fail with a clear error message.

OpenRouter (100+ Models)

Access 100+ models from all major providers through a single API key:

export OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-...

This enables Google Gemini, Meta Llama, Cohere, and many more through the unified OpenRouter API. See openrouter.ai/models for the full list.

---

63 Built-in Integrations

Sandcastle ships with 63 zero-config tool connectors across 9 categories. Each integration is a lightweight JavaScript module that agents can call during workflow execution. Named connections let you wire multiple accounts (e.g. "production-slack" vs "staging-slack"), and all credentials are encrypted at rest with Fernet (AES-128-CBC + HMAC-SHA256).

Category	Tools
Communication	Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, Twilio, SendGrid, Resend, WhatsApp
Project Management	Jira, Linear, Notion, Airtable, Google Sheets, Figma
CRM	HubSpot, Salesforce, Zendesk, Intercom
Data	MongoDB, Snowflake, Supabase, Pinecone, Redis, Database, Google Drive, Qdrant, GCS, Azure Blob
ERP	SAP, ServiceNow, Helios, ABRA
Payments	Stripe, Shopify, QuickBooks, Plaid, DocuSign
AI	OpenAI, Anthropic, ElevenLabs, Langfuse
DevOps	GitHub, AWS S3, Vercel, Cloudflare Workers, Datadog, PagerDuty
General	Webhook, Zapier, Calendly, Firecrawl, Tavily, Exa, MCP Bridge, Human Input, Filesystem, Shell, Python Runtime, Code Interpreter, Browser

steps:
  - id: "notify"
    type: notify
    service: slack
    connection: production-slack
    template: "Lead {steps.score.output.company} scored {steps.score.output.score}/100"

---

Workflow Engine

Define multi-step agent pipelines as YAML. Each step can run in parallel, depend on previous steps, pass data forward, and use different models.

Example: lead-enrichment.yaml

name: "Lead Enrichment"
description: "Scrape, enrich, and score leads for sales outreach."
default_model: sonnet
default_max_turns: 10
default_timeout: 300

steps:
  - id: "scrape"
    prompt: |
      Visit {input.target_url} and extract:
      company name, employee count, main product, contact info.
      Return as structured JSON.
    output_schema:
      type: object
      properties:
        company_name: { type: string }
        employees: { type: integer }
        product: { type: string }
        contact_email: { type: string }

  - id: "enrich"
    depends_on: ["scrape"]
    prompt: |
      Given this company data: {steps.scrape.output}
      Research: revenue, industry, key decision makers, recent news.
    retry:
      max_attempts: 3
      backoff: exponential
      on_failure: abort

  - id: "score"
    depends_on: ["enrich"]
    prompt: |
      Score this lead 1-100 for B2B SaaS potential.
      Based on: {steps.enrich.output}
    model: haiku

on_complete:
  storage_path: "leads/{run_id}/result.json"

Parallel Execution

Steps at the same DAG layer run concurrently. Use parallel_over to fan out over a list:

steps:
  - id: "fetch-competitors"
    prompt: "Identify top 3 competitors for {input.company_url}."

  - id: "analyze"
    depends_on: ["fetch-competitors"]
    parallel_over: "steps.fetch-competitors.output.competitors"
    prompt: "Analyze {input._item} for pricing and feature changes."
    retry:
      max_attempts: 2
      backoff: exponential
      on_failure: skip

  - id: "summarize"
    depends_on: ["analyze"]
    prompt: "Create executive summary from: {steps.analyze.output}"

Data Passing Between Steps

When you connect steps with depends_on, data flows automatically. You don't need to reference the previous step's output explicitly - Sandcastle injects it as context:

steps:
  - id: "research"
    prompt: "Find all EU presidents and return as JSON."

  - id: "enrich"
    depends_on: ["research"]
    prompt: "Add political party and key decisions for each president."
    # Output from "research" is automatically available - no need for {steps.research.output}

For fine-grained control, you can still reference specific outputs explicitly using {steps.STEP_ID.output} or drill into fields with {steps.STEP_ID.output.field_name}:

  - id: "score"
    depends_on: ["scrape", "enrich"]
    prompt: |
      Score this lead based on company: {steps.scrape.output.company_name}
      and enrichment: {steps.enrich.output}

Rules:

• depends_on controls execution order and data flow
• Unreferenced dependency outputs are appended as context automatically
• Explicitly referenced outputs ({steps.X.output}) are placed exactly where you write them
• {input.X} references workflow input parameters passed at run time

---

21 Step Types

Sandcastle supports 21 step types for building complex workflows beyond simple LLM prompts:

Phase	Type	Description
Core	standard	Default LLM prompt execution in sandbox
Core	llm	Direct LLM call without sandbox overhead
Core	http	HTTP request (GET/POST/PUT/DELETE) with response parsing
Core	code	Execute code snippets (Python/JS) in sandbox
Core	condition	Branch workflow based on expression evaluation
Core	classify	Route to different branches based on LLM classification
Core	loop	Iterate over a list, executing sub-steps for each item
Core	parse	Extract text from PDF, DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, CSV - no LLM cost
Advanced	race	Run parallel branches, take the first to complete
Advanced	sensor	Poll a URL until a condition is met (webhook alternative)
Advanced	gate	Multi-strategy approval (human, LLM judge, quorum)
Advanced	transform	Jinja2 template rendering for data transformation
Advanced	notify	Send alerts via Slack, Teams, email, or webhook
Advanced	delegate	Spawn a sub-workflow and collect results
Advanced	openclaw	Delegate to an autonomous OpenClaw agent
Advanced	managed-agent	Delegate to Anthropic Managed Agents (15 built-in templates)
Built-in	approval	Human approval gate with timeout and auto-action
Built-in	sub_workflow	Execute another workflow as a step
Built-in	browser	Web automation with Playwright, LightPanda, or Browserbase
Built-in	composio	500+ business app actions via Composio integration
Built-in	report	Generate PDF reports with charts, KPIs, and callouts

steps:
  - id: "check-api"
    type: sensor
    sensor:
      url: "https://api.example.com/status"
      interval_seconds: 30
      timeout_seconds: 300
      condition: "response.status == 'ready'"

  - id: "fastest-wins"
    type: race
    depends_on: ["check-api"]
    branches:
      - id: "openai-branch"
        model: openai/codex-mini
        prompt: "Analyze {steps.check-api.output}"
      - id: "claude-branch"
        model: haiku
        prompt: "Analyze {steps.check-api.output}"

  - id: "format"
    type: transform
    depends_on: ["fastest-wins"]
    template: |
      ## Analysis Report
      **Result:** {{ steps['fastest-wins'].output.summary }}
      **Generated:** {{ now() }}

---

Managed Agents

Delegate complex tasks to Anthropic Claude Managed Agents running in isolated cloud containers with full tool access (bash, file I/O, web browsing). Three configuration modes let you go from zero-config to fully customized:

Templates (Quickstart)

15 built-in agent templates across 6 categories:

Category	Template	Role
Research	researcher	Web research with citations and source verification
Research	seo_specialist	SEO audit, keywords, meta tags, structured data
Development	coder	Python development - writes and runs code
Development	reviewer	Code review, security audit, best practices
Development	tester	Pytest tests, coverage, fixtures
Development	devops	Dockerfiles, CI/CD, deployment scripts
Development	designer	HTML/CSS/Tailwind prototypes, SVG
Data	analyst	Pandas, matplotlib, statistical analysis
Data	sql_expert	SQL optimization, schema design, migrations
Data	scraper	Web scraping, BeautifulSoup, data extraction
Content	writer	Content writing, proofreading, editing
Content	translator	Translation with cultural context, 90+ languages
Business	legal_analyst	Contract analysis, risk identification, clause extraction
Business	financial_analyst	Financial models, charts, forecasting
Operations	project_manager	Project breakdown, Gantt charts, status reports

Advanced features: output_format (json/files/markdown), shared_files between agents, fallback_template on failure.

# A) Template - one line to configure
steps:
  - id: deep-research
    type: managed-agent
    managed_agent_config:
      agent_template: researcher
      message: "Research {input.topic} and provide a comprehensive report with citations"

# B) Describe - AI designs the agent from natural language
  - id: custom-analyst
    type: managed-agent
    managed_agent_config:
      describe: "Data analyst who downloads CSVs, cleans data with pandas, generates matplotlib charts"
      message: "Analyze this dataset: {steps.fetch.output}"

# C) Explicit - full control over every parameter
  - id: security-audit
    type: managed-agent
    managed_agent_config:
      agent_id: auto
      model: claude-sonnet-4-6
      system_prompt: "You are a security auditor. Find vulnerabilities."
      tools_enabled: [bash, read, grep, glob]
      packages: [bandit, safety]
      network_access: false
      message: "Audit this codebase for vulnerabilities"

When to use managed-agent vs llm: Use managed-agent when the task needs tool execution (running code, browsing the web, reading/writing files). Use llm for pure text generation where no tools are needed. Managed agents cost more but can autonomously solve multi-step problems.

Requires ANTHROPIC_API_KEY environment variable.

---

Self-Describing Workflows

Every step can declare responsibility, source_hint, owner, and added_date metadata so your workflows stay understandable as they grow. Three new CLI commands support this: sandcastle describe prints a human-readable summary of any workflow, sandcastle lint flags missing metadata and structural issues, and sandcastle owners lists who owns each step. The audit trail and dashboard are enriched with this metadata automatically.

Dynamic Context (context_query)

LLM steps can now fetch relevant context before execution using the context_query field. Four sources are supported: Agent Memory (semantic search over stored knowledge), web (Tavily search), local files (keyword search across project files), and custom (arbitrary shell command output). Retrieved context is injected as {context} in prompts, giving your LLM steps fresh, relevant information without manual prompt engineering.

Streaming CLI (sandcastle run --stream)

The sandcastle run --stream flag enables live terminal output with color-coded status: green for completed steps, yellow for running, red for failed. Each step shows timing, cost, and responsibility. Pressing Ctrl+C detaches from the stream and lets the workflow continue in background. Three additional commands ship in this release: sandcastle describe, sandcastle lint, and sandcastle owners.

---

Human Approval Gates

Pause any workflow at a critical step and wait for human review before continuing. Define approval steps in YAML, set timeouts with auto-actions (skip or abort), and approve/reject/skip via API or dashboard. Reviewers can edit the request data before approving. Webhook notifications fire when approval is needed.

steps:
  - id: "generate-report"
    prompt: "Generate quarterly report..."

  - id: "review"
    type: approval
    depends_on: ["generate-report"]
    approval_config:
      message: "Review the generated report before sending to client"
      timeout_hours: 24
      on_timeout: abort
      allow_edit: true

  - id: "send"
    depends_on: ["review"]
    prompt: "Send the approved report to {input.client_email}"

---

Self-Optimizing Workflows (AutoPilot)

A/B test different models, prompts, and configurations for any step. Sandcastle automatically runs variants, evaluates quality (via LLM judge or schema completeness), tracks cost and latency, and picks the best-performing variant. Supports quality, cost, latency, and pareto optimization targets.

steps:
  - id: "enrich"
    prompt: "Enrich this lead: {input.company}"
    autopilot:
      enabled: true
      optimize_for: quality
      min_samples: 20
      auto_deploy: true
      variants:
        - id: fast
          model: haiku
        - id: quality
          model: opus
          prompt: "Thoroughly research and enrich: {input.company}"
      evaluation:
        method: llm_judge
        criteria: "Rate completeness, accuracy, and depth 1-10"

---

Hierarchical Workflows (Workflow-as-Step)

Call one workflow from another. Parent workflows can pass data to children via input mapping, collect results via output mapping, and fan out over lists with configurable concurrency. Depth limiting prevents runaway recursion.

steps:
  - id: "find-leads"
    prompt: "Find 10 leads in {input.industry}"

  - id: "enrich-each"
    type: sub_workflow
    depends_on: ["find-leads"]
    sub_workflow:
      workflow: lead-enrichment
      input_mapping:
        company: steps.find-leads.output.company
      output_mapping:
        result: enriched_data
      max_concurrent: 5
      timeout: 600

  - id: "summarize"
    depends_on: ["enrich-each"]
    prompt: "Summarize enrichment results: {steps.enrich-each.output}"

---

Policy Engine

Declarative rules evaluated against every step output. Detect PII, block secrets, inject dynamic approval gates, or alert on suspicious patterns - all defined in YAML. Policies can be global (apply to all steps) or scoped per step.

policies:
  - id: pii-redact
    description: "Redact personal data from outputs"
    severity: high
    trigger:
      type: pattern
      patterns:
        - type: builtin
          name: email
        - type: builtin
          name: phone
        - type: builtin
          name: ssn
    action:
      type: redact

  - id: cost-guard
    description: "Block steps that are too expensive"
    severity: critical
    trigger:
      type: condition
      expression: "step_cost > 2.0"
    action:
      type: block
      message: "Step exceeded $2 cost limit"

steps:
  - id: "research"
    prompt: "Research {input.company}"
    policies: ["pii-redact", "cost-guard"]

  - id: "internal-only"
    prompt: "Prepare internal report..."
    policies: []  # skip all policies for this step

Built-in patterns for email, phone, SSN, and credit card numbers. Custom regex patterns supported. Condition triggers use safe expression evaluation - no arbitrary code execution.

---

Privacy Router (PII Redaction)

The Privacy Router runs automatically on all step inputs and outputs, detecting and redacting sensitive data before it reaches logs, storage, or downstream steps.

7 built-in PII patterns: email addresses, phone numbers, SSNs, credit card numbers, IP addresses, IBANs, and dates of birth.

Two modes:

• redact - replaces matched values with [REDACTED] tokens
• audit_only - logs the detection without modifying the data

Configure per-workflow in YAML or globally via environment variables:

# Per-workflow configuration
privacy:
  mode: redact            # "redact" | "audit_only"
  patterns:               # optional: restrict to specific patterns
    - email
    - credit_card
    - ssn
  exclude_steps:          # optional: skip privacy check on these steps
    - internal-analysis

# Per-server configuration (env vars)
PRIVACY_MODE=redact
PRIVACY_PATTERNS=email,phone,ssn,credit_card,ip,iban,dob

The Privacy Router integrates with the audit trail - every redaction event is logged with run ID, step ID, and matched pattern type (not the matched value).

---

Cost Estimation API

Estimate the cost of a workflow before running it. The /runs/estimate endpoint parses the workflow YAML, resolves model assignments per step (including classify/gate overrides), and returns a per-step and total cost breakdown based on average token usage.

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/runs/estimate \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "workflow": "lead-enrichment",
    "input": { "target_url": "https://example.com" }
  }'

{
  "data": {
    "valid": true,
    "validation_errors": [],
    "estimated_cost_usd": 0.18,
    "steps": [
      { "id": "scrape",  "model": "sonnet", "estimated_cost_usd": 0.06 },
      { "id": "enrich",  "model": "sonnet", "estimated_cost_usd": 0.09 },
      { "id": "score",   "model": "haiku",  "estimated_cost_usd": 0.03 }
    ]
  }
}

The valid field indicates whether the workflow passes validation. Invalid workflows still return an estimate but include a disclaimer that the figure may be unreliable. Falls back to sonnet pricing for unknown models.

---

Cost-Latency Optimizer

SLO-based dynamic model routing. Define quality, cost, and latency constraints per step, and Sandcastle automatically selects the best model from a pool based on historical performance data. Budget pressure detection forces cheaper models when spending approaches limits.

steps:
  - id: "enrich"
    prompt: "Enrich data for {input.company}"
    slo:
      quality_min: 0.7
      cost_max_usd: 0.15
      latency_max_seconds: 60
      optimize_for: cost
    model_pool:
      - id: fast-cheap
        model: haiku
        max_turns: 5
      - id: balanced
        model: sonnet
        max_turns: 10
      - id: thorough
        model: opus
        max_turns: 20

  - id: "classify"
    prompt: "Classify the enriched data"
    slo:
      quality_min: 0.8
      optimize_for: quality
    # No model_pool - auto-generates haiku/sonnet/opus pool

The optimizer scores each model option across multiple objectives, filters out options that violate SLO constraints, and tracks confidence based on sample count. Cold starts default to a balanced middle option until enough data is collected.

---

EU AI Act Compliance

Sandcastle includes built-in support for EU AI Act requirements. Classify workflows by risk level, enforce compliance policies, generate transparency reports, and produce Annex IV technical documentation.

Risk Classification

Set risk_level in any workflow YAML:

name: "Loan Assessment"
risk_level: high          # "minimal" | "limited" | "high" | "unacceptable"
description: "Automated credit scoring workflow."
steps:
  - id: "evaluate"
    prompt: "Evaluate loan application: {input.application}"

Risk level behavior:

• unacceptable - blocked at submission, workflow will not run
• high - requires human approval when COMPLIANCE_MODE=eu_ai_act is set
• limited / minimal - logged and included in transparency reports, no gate

Compliance Mode

# Enable EU AI Act enforcement in .env
COMPLIANCE_MODE=eu_ai_act

Check active compliance features:

GET /api/compliance/status

Transparency Reports

Every completed run exposes an Article 13 transparency report:

GET /api/runs/{run_id}/transparency-report

Returns: AI models used, human oversight steps, policy violations, risk level, and input prompt log (if risk_level: high).

Annex IV Generator

Generate a technical documentation stub for EU AI Act Annex IV:

GET /api/workflows/{workflow_name}/annex-iv

Returns a structured document covering system description, intended purpose, risk level, human oversight measures, and technical characteristics.

Emergency Stop

Cancel all running and queued workflows globally (e.g. in response to a compliance incident):

POST /api/admin/emergency-stop

Sets a Redis/in-memory flag checked by the executor. All active runs are cancelled immediately.

---

Tamper-Evident Audit Trail

Every significant event in Sandcastle is appended to a tamper-evident audit log. Each entry is chained to the previous using SHA-256 hashes (entry_hash covers the event content; prev_hash is the hash of the preceding entry), making retroactive modification detectable.

Hooked events: workflow submission, step start/complete/fail, approval decisions, admin actions (emergency stop, key rotation, bulk delete), and policy violations.

Audit Endpoints

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/audit	Paginated audit log (filterable by run, event type, date)
GET	/api/runs/{id}/audit	Audit events for a specific run
GET	/api/audit/verify/{id}	Verify hash chain integrity for an event

# Verify the hash chain for a run's audit events
curl http://localhost:8080/api/audit/verify/run_abc123
# Returns: { "valid": true, "chain_length": 12, "broken_at": null }

---

OpenTelemetry

Sandcastle emits OTLP traces for every workflow run and step, including cost, token counts, and duration as span attributes.

Install the optional extra:

pip install sandcastle-ai[otel]

Configure via environment variables:

OTEL_ENABLED=true
OTEL_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4318    # OTLP HTTP collector endpoint
OTEL_SERVICE_NAME=sandcastle           # optional, defaults to "sandcastle"

Each workflow run creates a root span. Each step creates a child span with attributes: sandcastle.step.id, sandcastle.step.model, sandcastle.step.cost_usd, sandcastle.step.input_tokens, sandcastle.step.output_tokens, sandcastle.step.duration_ms.

Compatible with any OTLP-capable backend: Jaeger, Grafana Tempo, Honeycomb, Datadog, etc.

---

Agent Memory

Sandcastle includes a built-in memory system that gives agents persistent context across workflow runs. Memories are semantically searchable, automatically enriched with keywords and tags, and decay over time based on relevance.

• Write admission control - Scores incoming memories (0.0-1.0) based on length, structure, and novelty. Rejects low-value or duplicate information automatically.
• Semantic search - Sentence-transformer embeddings for finding relevant memories by meaning, not just keywords.
• Automatic decay - Memories expire after a configurable TTL (default 90 days). Relevance scores decrease linearly with age.
• Conflict detection - Flags new memories that overlap >40% with existing entries, preventing duplication.
• Auto-enrichment - Extracts keywords, auto-tags (issue, preference, insight, data), and timestamps.
• Optional graph backend - Neo4j support for relationship-aware memory queries.

# Configured via environment variables
MEMORY_BACKEND=local        # "local" (SQLite + embeddings) or "cloud" (Mem0)
MEMORY_GRAPH_ENABLED=false  # Enable Neo4j graph backend
MEMORY_MAX_AGE_DAYS=90      # TTL for memory decay (0 = keep forever)
MEMORY_ADMIT_THRESHOLD=0.3  # Minimum quality score for admission

---

Evaluations

Run test suites against your workflows to measure quality over time. Define assertions (exact match, contains, schema validation, LLM judge), track pass rates, cost per test, and duration. Trend charts show quality regression before it hits production.

---

Directory Input & CSV Export

Process files from a directory and export results to CSV - all configured in YAML. The workflow builder includes a directory browser and CSV export toggle per step.

Directory input

Mark a step as directory-aware and Sandcastle adds a directory field to the workflow's input schema. Users provide a path at run time, and the agent reads files from that directory.

input_schema:
  required: ["directory"]
  properties:
    directory:
      type: string
      description: "Path to directory"
      default: "~/Documents"

steps:
  - id: "analyze"
    prompt: |
      Read every file in {input.directory} and summarize the key findings.

CSV export

Any step can export its output to CSV. Two modes:

• new_file - each run creates a timestamped file (e.g. report_20260217_143022.csv)
• append - all runs append rows to a single file, perfect for ongoing data collection

steps:
  - id: "extract"
    prompt: "Extract all contacts from {input.directory}."
    csv_output:
      directory: ./output
      mode: new_file
      filename: contacts    # optional, defaults to step ID

  - id: "score"
    depends_on: ["extract"]
    prompt: "Score each contact for sales potential."
    csv_output:
      directory: ./output
      mode: append          # all runs land in one file
      filename: scores

Works with any output shape - dicts become columns, lists of dicts become rows, plain text goes into a value column. Directories are created automatically.

---

Document Parsing

Parse PDF, DOCX, XLSX, and CSV files directly in your workflows:

steps:
  - id: extract
    type: parse
    prompt: "{input.document}"
    parse_config:
      output: markdown
      pages: "1-10"

  - id: analyze
    prompt: "Analyze: {steps.extract.output.text}"
    depends_on: [extract]

Supported formats: PDF (with optional OCR), DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, CSV. Install parsing support: pip install sandcastle-ai[parse]

OCR engines: pymupdf (fast text extraction), chandra (scanned docs, handwriting), glm-ocr (0.9B vision-language model via Ollama, 94.6% accuracy, runs 100% locally). In auto mode Sandcastle tries pymupdf first, then glm-ocr (if Ollama is available), then Chandra.

PDFs are also auto-parsed when uploaded as workflow inputs (if pymupdf is installed).

---

Batch Run

Run any workflow on hundreds of items in parallel. Upload a CSV or JSON array, set max parallelism, and Sandcastle fans out into concurrent runs with progress tracking and aggregate cost reporting.

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/workflows/lead-enrichment/batch \
  -H "X-API-Key: $KEY" \
  -d '{"items": [{"url": "https://acme.com"}, {"url": "https://beta.io"}], "max_parallel": 10}'

Auto-Update

Sandcastle checks for updates and can upgrade itself. CLI: sandcastle update. Dashboard: one-click update with rollback. Supports stable/beta/pinned channels, blackout windows, and enterprise approval policies.

Schedule Monitor

Dashboard page showing all cron schedules at a glance: last run status, next run countdown, success rate, pause/resume controls. No more guessing which scheduled workflow failed overnight.

Workflow Version Diff

Every workflow edit is versioned. Compare any two versions side-by-side with YAML diff highlighting. See exactly what changed, when, and roll back if needed.

Activity Feed

Real-time activity stream on the dashboard: workflow runs, failures, edits, API key events. Know what happened without digging through logs.

---

Community Hub

Sandcastle ships with 23 built-in workflow templates. The Community Hub adds 118 more from the community - curated collections for marketing, sales, DevOps, and more.

Category	Built-in Templates
Marketing	Blog to Social, SEO Content, Email Campaign, Competitor Analysis, Ad Copy Generator, Competitive Radar, Content Atomizer
Sales	Lead Enrichment, Proposal Generator, Meeting Recap, Lead Outreach
Support	Ticket Classifier, Review Sentiment
HR	Job Description, Resume Screener
Legal	Contract Review
Product	Release Notes, Data Extractor
Foundational	Summarize, Translate, Research Agent, Chain of Thought, Review and Approve

# Browse the community hub
sandcastle hub search "lead scoring"

# Install a community template
sandcastle hub install competitive-radar

# Install a whole collection
sandcastle hub collections
sandcastle hub install-collection marketing-pro

# Publish your own template
sandcastle hub publish my-workflow.yaml

---

Real-time Event Stream

Sandcastle provides a global SSE endpoint for real-time updates across the entire system:

# Connect to the global event stream
curl -N http://localhost:8080/api/events

The dashboard uses this stream to power live indicators showing connection status, toast notifications for run completion and failure, and instant updates across all pages. Event types include:

• run.started - A workflow run was queued and started executing
• run.completed - A run finished successfully with outputs
• run.failed - A run failed (all retries exhausted)
• step.started, step.completed, step.failed - Per-step progress events
• dlq.new - A new item landed in the dead letter queue

No polling, no delays - every state change is pushed the moment it happens.

---

Run Time Machine

Every completed step saves a checkpoint. When something goes wrong - or you just want to try a different approach - you don't have to start over.

Replay - Re-run from any step. Sandcastle loads the checkpoint from just before that step and continues execution. All prior steps are skipped, their outputs restored from the checkpoint. Costs only what's re-executed.

Fork - Same as replay, but you change something first. Swap the model from Haiku to Opus. Rewrite the prompt. Adjust max_turns. The new run branches off with your changes and Sandcastle tracks the full lineage.

# Replay from the "enrich" step
curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/runs/{run_id}/replay \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "from_step": "enrich" }'

# Fork with a different model
curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/runs/{run_id}/fork \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "from_step": "score",
    "changes": { "model": "opus", "prompt": "Score more conservatively..." }
  }'

---

Budget Guardrails

Set a spending limit per run, per tenant, or as a global default. Sandcastle checks the budget after every step:

• 80% - Warning logged, execution continues
• 100% - Hard stop, status = budget_exceeded

Budget resolution order: request max_cost_usd > tenant API key limit > DEFAULT_MAX_COST_USD env var.

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/workflows/run \
  -d '{ "workflow": "enrichment", "input": {...}, "max_cost_usd": 0.50 }'

---

Security

Sandcastle includes multiple layers of security hardening for production deployments:

Credential Encryption

All integration credentials are encrypted at rest using Fernet (AES-128-CBC + HMAC-SHA256). Set CREDENTIAL_ENCRYPTION_KEY in your environment - without it, credentials are stored as plaintext (backwards compatible for local dev).

API Key Rotation

Rotate API keys with zero downtime. The old key remains valid during a configurable grace period (default 24 hours), giving clients time to switch over.

# Rotate a key
curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/api-keys/{key_id}/rotate

# Response includes new key + old key expiry time

IP Allowlisting

Restrict API keys to specific IP ranges. Supports IPv4 and IPv6 CIDR notation. Empty list means allow all.

curl -X PUT http://localhost:8080/api/api-keys/{key_id}/allowlist \
  -d '{ "cidrs": ["10.0.0.0/8", "2001:db8::/32"] }'

Security Headers

All responses include hardened security headers: X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff, X-Frame-Options: DENY, Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin, and Permissions-Policy denying camera/microphone/geolocation/payment. Dashboard pages get a full Content-Security-Policy (configurable as report-only via CSP_REPORT_ONLY).

Rate Limiting

Sliding-window rate limiting on expensive endpoints (workflow execution). Per-tenant when authenticated, per-IP when anonymous. Two backends:

• In-memory (default) - single-process, zero deps
• Redis (auto-detected from REDIS_URL) - distributed, uses sorted sets with atomic check+increment

Secret Scrubber

Step outputs and log messages are automatically scrubbed for leaked credentials before storage. The scrubber catches:

• Credential URLs (postgres://user:pass@host, redis://:pass@host)
• PEM private key blocks (RSA, EC, DSA, ENCRYPTED)
• Azure AccountKey= values
• Compound env-style secrets (aws_secret_access_key=...)
• JSON-quoted secrets ("password": "value")

The scrubber is idempotent (double-scrubbing produces the same output) and uses a two-layer defense: PEM regex runs first, then token-based regex.

Privacy Router

The Privacy Router (see Privacy Router (PII Redaction)) provides a second layer of output sanitization, detecting and redacting PII (emails, phones, SSNs, credit cards, IPs, IBANs, dates of birth) across all step outputs. Configurable per-workflow or globally.

Docker Sandbox Hardening

When using the Docker backend, every container runs with:

• All capabilities dropped (CapDrop: ALL)
• Seccomp profile restricting dangerous syscalls
• PID limit (default 100, configurable)
• CPU quota (default 50%, configurable)
• Memory limit (default 512 MiB, configurable)
• Unprivileged user (1000:1000)
• Auto-remove on exit

---

A2A & AG-UI Protocols

A2A (Agent-to-Agent)

Sandcastle implements Google's A2A protocol for agent interoperability. Any A2A-compatible agent can discover and call Sandcastle workflows via standard JSON-RPC 2.0.

• Discovery: GET /.well-known/agent.json - returns capabilities, skills, and supported methods
• Execute: POST /a2a - tasks/send to run workflows, tasks/get to poll status, tasks/cancel to abort
• Status mapping: Internal states (queued, running, completed, failed, awaiting_approval) map to A2A standard states

AG-UI (Agent-User Interaction)

Sandcastle streams workflow execution via the CopilotKit AG-UI protocol, enabling real-time UI integration with compatible frontends.

• Endpoint: GET /api/agui/stream/{run_id} (Server-Sent Events)
• Events: run_started, run_finished, run_error, step_started, text_message, tool_call_start, tool_call_end, state_delta
• Timeout: 10-minute streaming window with 1s polling interval

---

Dashboard

Sandcastle ships with a full-featured dashboard built with React, TypeScript, and Tailwind CSS v4. Dark and light theme, real-time updates via SSE, global search across runs/workflows/integrations, and zero configuration - just open http://localhost:8080 after sandcastle serve. For frontend development, run cd dashboard && npm run dev.

Overview

KPI cards, 30-day run trends, cost breakdown per workflow, recent runs at a glance. The Lighthouse health score surfaces actionable insights when something needs attention - DLQ items, critical violations, failing runs, unconfigured integrations.

Dark mode

Runs

Filterable run history with status badges, duration, cost per run. Bulk actions (cancel, delete) with multi-select. Contextual banner warns when success rate drops below 90%.

Run Detail - Completed with Budget Bar

Step-by-step timeline with expandable outputs, per-step cost and duration. Budget bar shows how close a run got to its spending limit.

Run Detail - Failed with Replay & Fork

When a step fails, expand it to see the full error, retry count, and two powerful recovery options: Replay from here re-runs from that step with the same context. Fork from here lets you change the prompt, model, or parameters before re-running.

Run Detail - Running with Parallel Steps

Live view of a running workflow showing parallel step execution. Steps with a pulsing blue dot are currently executing inside sandboxes.

Run Lineage

When you replay or fork a run, Sandcastle tracks the full lineage. The run detail page shows the parent-child relationship so you can trace exactly how you got here.

Workflows

Grid of workflow cards with step count, descriptions, and quick-action buttons. Click "Run" to trigger a workflow with custom input and budget limits.

Visual DAG Preview

Click "DAG" on any workflow card to expand an interactive graph of all steps, their dependencies, and assigned models. Powered by React Flow.

Workflow Builder

Visual drag-and-drop editor for building workflows. Add steps, connect dependencies, configure models and timeouts, then preview the generated YAML. Collapsible advanced sections for retry logic, CSV export, AutoPilot, approval gates, policy rules, and SLO optimizer - all reflected in the YAML preview. Directory input with a server-side file browser. Editing an existing workflow loads its steps and edges into the canvas.

Integrations

63 tool connectors across 9 categories. Each tool shows connection status, named connections, and a configuration panel. Contextual banner highlights tools that are available but not yet configured.

Schedules

Cron-based scheduling with human-readable descriptions, enable/disable toggle, and inline edit. Click "Edit" to change the cron expression or toggle a schedule without leaving the page.

API Keys

Create, view, rotate, and deactivate multi-tenant API keys. IP allowlisting per key. Key prefix shown in monospace, full key revealed only once on creation with a copy-to-clipboard flow.

Dead Letter Queue

Failed steps that exhausted all retries land here. Retry triggers a full re-run. Resolve marks the issue as handled. Sidebar badge shows unresolved count. Contextual banner surfaces when items need attention.

Approval Gates

Pending, approved, rejected, and skipped gates with filterable tabs. Each pending approval has Approve, Reject, and Skip buttons. Configurable timeouts auto-resolve approvals if nobody responds.

Expanded with request data

Click any approval to expand it and see the full request data the agent produced. If allow_edit is enabled, reviewers can modify the data before approving.

AutoPilot - Self-Optimizing Workflows

A/B test different models, prompts, and configurations on any workflow step. Stats cards show active experiments, total samples, average quality improvement, and cost savings.

Expanded with variant comparison

Each variant shows sample count, average quality score, cost, and duration. The "BEST" badge highlights the current leader.

Evaluations

Test suite management with pass rate tracking, cost per test, assertion details, and trend analysis over time.

Policy Violations

Every policy trigger logged with severity, action taken, and full context. Filter by severity (Critical, High, Medium, Low). Color-coded badges for blocked, redacted, flagged, or logged actions.

Expanded with trigger details

Click any violation to see what pattern matched, what was detected, and what action was taken. Includes links to the originating run and step.

Cost-Latency Optimizer

Real-time view of model routing decisions. Stats cards show total decisions, average confidence, top model, and estimated savings. Budget pressure indicators pulse red when spending approaches limits.

Expanded with alternatives and SLO config

Full alternatives table with scores and the SLO configuration that drove the selection.

Settings

Editable configuration sections for connections (API keys for providers), security (auth settings), budget (cost limits), webhooks, and system settings (log levels, depth limits, storage). License tier display.

System Health

Service status checks (Runtime, Redis, Database), uptime tracking, and quick stats (workflows, runs, templates, API keys).

Onboarding Wizard

First-run guided setup that walks new users through API key configuration, sandbox backend selection, and first workflow execution.

---

API Reference

Workflows

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/workflows	List available workflows
POST	/api/workflows	Save new workflow YAML
POST	/api/workflows/run	Run workflow async (returns run_id)
POST	/api/workflows/run/sync	Run workflow sync (blocks until done)

Runs

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/runs	List runs (filterable by status, workflow, date, tenant)
GET	/api/runs/{id}	Get run detail with step statuses
GET	/api/runs/{id}/stream	SSE stream of live progress
POST	/api/runs/{id}/cancel	Cancel a running workflow
POST	/api/runs/{id}/replay	Replay from a specific step
POST	/api/runs/{id}/fork	Fork from a step with overrides
POST	/api/runs/estimate	Pre-run cost estimation with per-step breakdown
GET	/api/runs/{id}/audit	Audit events for a specific run
GET	/api/runs/{id}/transparency-report	EU AI Act Article 13 transparency report

Schedules

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/api/schedules	Create cron schedule
GET	/api/schedules	List all schedules
PATCH	/api/schedules/{id}	Update schedule (cron, enabled, input)
DELETE	/api/schedules/{id}	Delete schedule

Dead Letter Queue

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/dead-letter	List failed items
POST	/api/dead-letter/{id}/retry	Retry failed step (full replay)
POST	/api/dead-letter/{id}/resolve	Mark as resolved

Approval Gates

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/approvals	List approvals (filterable by status)
GET	/api/approvals/{id}	Get approval detail with request data
POST	/api/approvals/{id}/approve	Approve (optional edit + comment)
POST	/api/approvals/{id}/reject	Reject and fail the run
POST	/api/approvals/{id}/skip	Skip step and continue workflow

AutoPilot

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/autopilot/experiments	List experiments
GET	/api/autopilot/experiments/{id}	Experiment detail with samples + stats
POST	/api/autopilot/experiments/{id}/deploy	Manually deploy a winning variant
POST	/api/autopilot/experiments/{id}/reset	Reset experiment
GET	/api/autopilot/stats	Savings and quality overview

Policy Engine

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/violations	List policy violations (filterable)
GET	/api/violations/stats	Violation stats by severity, policy, day
GET	/api/runs/{id}/violations	Violations for a specific run

Optimizer

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/optimizer/decisions	List routing decisions
GET	/api/optimizer/decisions/{run_id}	Decisions for a specific run
GET	/api/optimizer/stats	Model distribution, confidence, savings

Integrations

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/tools	List all available integrations with status
GET	/api/tools/{id}	Get tool detail and configuration
PUT	/api/tools/{id}/credentials	Save encrypted credentials for a tool
DELETE	/api/tools/{id}/credentials	Remove credentials

Evaluations

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/eval/suites	List evaluation test suites
GET	/api/eval/runs	List eval runs with results
GET	/api/eval/stats	Pass rates, cost stats, trends

API Keys

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/api/api-keys	Create API key (returns plaintext once)
GET	/api/api-keys	List active keys (prefix only)
DELETE	/api/api-keys/{id}	Deactivate key
POST	/api/api-keys/{id}/rotate	Rotate key with grace period
PUT	/api/api-keys/{id}/allowlist	Set IP allowlist (CIDR notation)

Audit Trail

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/audit	Paginated audit log (filterable by run, type, date)
GET	/api/audit/verify/{id}	Verify SHA-256 hash chain integrity for an event

Compliance (EU AI Act)

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/compliance/status	Active compliance features and mode
GET	/api/workflows/{name}/annex-iv	Generate Annex IV technical documentation stub
POST	/api/admin/emergency-stop	Cancel all running/queued workflows globally

Templates

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/templates	List all built-in workflow templates
GET	/api/templates/{id}	Get template detail with YAML

Evolution

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/api/evolution/start	Start workflow evolution
GET	/api/evolution/{name}/status	Evolution status
POST	/api/evolution/{name}/accept	Accept best variant

Agent Memory

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/api/memory/add	Store memory entry
POST	/api/memory/search	Semantic search
DELETE	/api/memories/{id}	Delete memory

Advisor

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/advisor/status	Current provider config
POST	/api/advisor/configure	Switch provider
GET	/api/advisor/cost-estimate	Cost comparison

Events & System

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/api/events	Global SSE stream (run, step, DLQ events)
GET	/api/health	Health check (sandbox backend, DB, Redis)
GET	/api/runtime	Current mode info (database, queue, storage, license)
GET	/api/stats	Aggregated stats and cost trends

Protocols

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/.well-known/agent.json	A2A agent discovery
POST	/a2a	A2A JSON-RPC 2.0 endpoint
GET	/api/agui/stream/{run_id}	AG-UI SSE streaming

All responses follow the envelope format: { "data": ..., "error": null } or { "data": null, "error": { "code": "...", "message": "..." } }.

---

Multi-Tenant Auth

Sandcastle supports strict multi-tenant isolation via API keys. Every API key maps to a tenant_id, and all queries are automatically scoped. Keys are hashed with HMAC-SHA256 and a server-side pepper - plaintext keys are never stored.

# Create an API key
curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/api-keys \
  -d '{ "tenant_id": "acme-corp", "name": "Production" }'
# Returns: { "data": { "key": "sc_abc123...", "key_prefix": "sc_abc12" } }

# Use it
curl http://localhost:8080/api/runs -H "X-API-Key: sc_abc123..."
# Only sees runs belonging to acme-corp

Toggle with AUTH_REQUIRED=true|false (default: false for local dev). When enabled, all endpoints except /api/health require a valid API key. Expired keys return 401 KEY_EXPIRED. Blocked IPs return 403 IP_BLOCKED.

---

Webhooks

Sandcastle signs all webhook payloads with HMAC-SHA256:

{
  "run_id": "a1b2c3d4-...",
  "status": "completed",
  "outputs": { "lead_score": 87, "tier": "A" },
  "total_cost_usd": 0.12
}

Header: X-Sandcastle-Signature for verification against your WEBHOOK_SECRET.

---

Architecture

flowchart TD
    App["Your App"] -->|"POST /api/workflows/run"| API["Sandcastle API\n(FastAPI)"]
    A2A["A2A Agents"] -->|"POST /a2a"| API
    AGUI["AG-UI Clients"] -->|"GET /api/agui/stream"| API

    API --> Engine["Workflow Engine\n(DAG executor, 21 step types)"]

    Engine --> Standard["Standard Steps"]
    Engine --> Sub["Sub-Workflow Steps\n(recursive execution)"]
    Engine --> Advanced["Advanced Steps\n(race, sensor, gate, transform, notify, delegate)"]

    Standard --> Sandshore["Sandshore Runtime\n(pluggable backends)"]
    Sub --> Child["Child Engine"]
    Advanced --> Sandshore
    Child --> SandshoreChild["Sandshore (child)"]

    Sandshore --> E2B["E2B\n(cloud)"]
    Sandshore --> Docker["Docker\n(seccomp + caps)"]
    Sandshore --> Local["Local\n(subprocess)"]
    Sandshore --> CF["Cloudflare\n(edge)"]
    SandshoreChild --> E2B2["Sandbox (child)"]

    E2B --> Execution
    Docker --> Execution
    Local --> Execution
    CF --> Execution
    E2B2 --> Merge

    Execution["Parallel Execution\n63 integrations"] --> Provider["Multi-Provider Router\nClaude / OpenAI / MiniMax / Gemini"]

    Provider --> Gate{"Approval\nGate?"}

    Gate -->|"Pause"| Review["Approve / Reject / Skip"]
    Gate -->|"Continue"| AutoPilot

    Review --> AutoPilot["AutoPilot\nA/B test variants"]
    AutoPilot --> Policy["Policy Engine\nPII redact / block / alert"]
    Policy --> Optimizer["SLO Optimizer\nRoute to best model"]
    Optimizer --> Memory["Agent Memory\nsemantic search + decay"]

    Memory --> Merge((" "))

    Merge --> LocalMode["Local Mode\nSQLite / In-process queue / Filesystem"]
    Merge --> ProdMode["Production Mode\nPostgreSQL / Redis (arq) / S3"]
    Merge --> BothModes["Both Modes\nWebhooks / SSE Stream / APScheduler"]

• Local mode - auto-created SQLite, in-process asyncio queue, and local filesystem. Zero dependencies.
• Production mode - PostgreSQL (runs, API keys, approvals, experiments, violations, routing decisions, checkpoints), Redis via arq (job queue, cancel flags), and S3/MinIO for persistent artifact storage.
• Both modes - HMAC-signed webhooks, SSE event streaming, and APScheduler for cron-based scheduling.

Tech Stack

Component	Local Mode	Production Mode
API Server	Python 3.12, FastAPI, Uvicorn	Python 3.12, FastAPI, Uvicorn
Database	SQLite + aiosqlite	PostgreSQL 16 + asyncpg + Alembic
Job Queue	In-process (asyncio)	Redis 7 + arq
Scheduler	APScheduler (in-memory)	APScheduler (in-memory)
Storage	Local filesystem	S3 / MinIO
Agent Runtime	Sandshore (E2B / Docker / Local / Cloudflare)	Sandshore (E2B / Docker / Local / Cloudflare)
Model Providers	Claude, OpenAI, MiniMax, Google/Gemini	Claude, OpenAI, MiniMax, Google/Gemini
Integrations	63 tools, 9 categories	63 tools, 9 categories
Security	Fernet encryption, HMAC auth, rate limiting	+ Redis rate limiting, seccomp, IP allowlists
Dashboard	React 18, TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind CSS v4	React 18, TypeScript, Vite, Tailwind CSS v4
DAG Visualization	@xyflow/react	@xyflow/react
Charts	Recharts	Recharts
SDK	SandcastleClient (httpx, sync + async)	SandcastleClient (httpx, sync + async)
CLI	argparse (zero deps)	argparse (zero deps)
Deployment	python -m sandcastle serve	Docker + docker-compose

---

Configuration

All configuration via environment variables or .env file. Run sandcastle init for an interactive setup wizard. Mode is auto-detected based on DATABASE_URL and REDIS_URL:

# Required
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
E2B_API_KEY=e2b_...            # required for E2B backend

# Sandbox backend: "e2b" (default) | "docker" | "local" | "cloudflare"
SANDBOX_BACKEND=e2b
MAX_CONCURRENT_SANDBOXES=5     # rate limiter for parallel execution

# Docker backend (only if SANDBOX_BACKEND=docker)
# DOCKER_IMAGE=sandcastle-runner:latest
# DOCKER_URL=                  # empty = local Docker socket
# DOCKER_SECCOMP_PROFILE=      # path to seccomp JSON (built-in default used if empty)
# DOCKER_PIDS_LIMIT=100
# DOCKER_CPU_PERIOD=100000
# DOCKER_CPU_QUOTA=50000
# DOCKER_MEMORY_LIMIT=536870912  # 512 MiB

# Cloudflare backend (only if SANDBOX_BACKEND=cloudflare)
# CLOUDFLARE_WORKER_URL=https://sandbox.your-domain.workers.dev

# Multi-provider API keys (optional, only for non-Claude models)
# OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
# MINIMAX_API_KEY=...
# OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-... # for Google Gemini via OpenRouter

# Universal Advisor (AI provider for generation, evolution, evaluation)
# SANDCASTLE_ADVISOR_PROVIDER=anthropic  # anthropic|openai|mistral|ollama|omlx|google|minimax (default: anthropic)
# SANDCASTLE_ADVISOR_MODEL=              # override default model for advisor
# MISTRAL_API_KEY=...                    # Mistral AI API key (EU region)
# OMLX_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080    # oMLX server URL (local inference)
# DATA_RESIDENCY=                        # eu|local|"" (empty = no restriction)

# E2B custom template (pre-built sandbox with SDK installed)
# E2B_TEMPLATE=sandcastle-runner

# Database (empty = SQLite local mode)
DATABASE_URL=

# Redis (empty = in-process queue)
REDIS_URL=

# Storage
STORAGE_BACKEND=local          # "local" or "s3"
DATA_DIR=./data                # SQLite + local storage base path
# STORAGE_BUCKET=sandcastle-data  # S3 only
# STORAGE_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:9000
# AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=minioadmin
# AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=minioadmin

# Security
WEBHOOK_SECRET=your-webhook-signing-secret
AUTH_REQUIRED=false
CREDENTIAL_ENCRYPTION_KEY=     # Fernet key for credential encryption (empty = plaintext)
API_KEY_PEPPER=                # HMAC pepper for API key hashing
KEY_ROTATION_GRACE_HOURS=24    # Grace period for rotated keys
CSP_REPORT_ONLY=false          # Content-Security-Policy in report-only mode

# Budget
DEFAULT_MAX_COST_USD=0    # 0 = no global budget limit
MAX_WORKFLOW_DEPTH=5      # max recursion depth for hierarchical workflows

# Agent Memory
MEMORY_BACKEND=local           # "local" (SQLite + embeddings) or "cloud"
MEMORY_MAX_AGE_DAYS=90         # TTL for memory decay (0 = keep forever)
MEMORY_ADMIT_THRESHOLD=0.3     # Minimum quality score for admission
MEMORY_GRAPH_ENABLED=false     # Enable Neo4j graph backend

# License
LICENSE_KEY=                   # sc_lic_... (community tier if empty)

# EU AI Act / Compliance
COMPLIANCE_MODE=               # "eu_ai_act" to enable enforcement
PRIVACY_MODE=redact            # "redact" | "audit_only" (default: off)
PRIVACY_PATTERNS=email,phone,ssn,credit_card,ip,iban,dob

# OpenTelemetry (requires pip install sandcastle-ai[otel])
OTEL_ENABLED=false
OTEL_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4318
OTEL_SERVICE_NAME=sandcastle

# Browser step modes
# BROWSERBASE_API_KEY=...
# BROWSERBASE_PROJECT_ID=...
# LIGHTPANDA_PATH=lightpanda    # path to lightpanda binary

# Dashboard
SANDBOX_ROOT=             # restrict browse + CSV export to this directory
DASHBOARD_ORIGIN=http://localhost:5173
WORKFLOWS_DIR=./workflows
LOG_LEVEL=info

---

oMLX - Local AI on Apple Silicon

Run AI workflows entirely on your Mac with oMLX. Zero cloud costs, zero data leaving your machine.

Setup:

# Install oMLX server
pip install omlx

# Start with Llama 4 Scout (17B, fits in 16GB RAM)
omlx serve mlx-community/Llama-4-Scout-17B-16E-Instruct-4bit

# Configure Sandcastle
export SANDCASTLE_ADVISOR_PROVIDER=omlx
export OMLX_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080

# Run
sandcastle serve

Available models:

Model	RAM	Best for
Llama 4 Scout 17B	12 GB	General research, analysis
Mistral Small 24B	16 GB	Structured tasks, coding
Gemma 3 27B	18 GB	Creative writing, summaries
Qwen 3 30B	20 GB	Multilingual, reasoning

Custom server URL:

# Point to remote oMLX server
export OMLX_BASE_URL=http://192.168.1.100:8080

---

Development

# Run tests (14,600+ passing)
uv run pytest

# Type check backend
uv run mypy src/

# Type check frontend
cd dashboard && npx tsc --noEmit

# Dashboard dev server (starts with demo data when backend is offline)
cd dashboard && npm run dev

# Docker - local mode (SQLite, no PG/Redis needed)
docker compose -f docker-compose.local.yml up

# Docker - full stack (PostgreSQL + Redis + worker)
docker compose up -d

---

Acknowledgements

Sandcastle's architecture was originally inspired by Sandstorm by @tomascupr - one of the cleanest abstractions for sandboxed agent execution. While Sandcastle has since evolved its own runtime (Sandshore) with pluggable backends, the original design philosophy of "full system access, completely isolated" remains at the core.

Created by Tomas Pflanzer (@gizmax).

---

License

BSL 1.1

---

Define in YAML. Run anywhere. Ship to production.