[!note]

Claude Code now officially supports bun runtime and bwrap-based sandbox. It is recommended to use these native features. ClaudeCage might still work.

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.

Breaking change: the build output is now named claude (plus claude.rcfg), so it can act as a drop-in replacement for the original claude CLI (but sandboxed).

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.
• Host Toolchain Access (Read-only): By default, common system directories (like /usr, /etc, /opt) are mounted read-only so Claude can use your existing compilers/tools without being able to modify them.

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 claude binary and claude.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:

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

2. Run ClaudeCage

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

mv claude claude.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
claude "Refactor this function to be more efficient." # Claude now has access to this directory only

Avoiding conflicts with your original claude

Because the output is named claude, installing it into your ${PATH} will likely override your original claude. (Not necessarily replace, as the recommendation is put claude and claude.rcfg in ~/.local/bin instead of /usr/bin.)

If you want to keep both, rename the pair to the same basename (the .rcfg must match the executable name):

mv claude claude-cage
mv claude.rcfg claude-cage.rcfg
./claude-cage "Hello from sandbox"

Configuration

Sandbox mounts & isolation (default)

You can edit claude.rcfg to customize what the sandbox can see. The default config is designed to be usable out-of-the-box while keeping sensitive host data out.

Persisted Claude state (host):

• On startup, the config ensures these exist on the host (created if missing):
  • ${HOME}/.claude/ (mode 700)
  • ${HOME}/.claude.json (mode 600)
• Then it bind-mounts them into the sandbox (so your login/config/history persist across runs):
  • ${HOME}/.claude.json (read-write)
  • ${HOME}/.claude/ (read-write)

Project directory:

• The current working directory is bind-mounted into the sandbox (so Claude can read/write your project).
• The command starts in the same working directory.

Host system/tooling (read-only):

• Common paths are mounted read-only so Claude can invoke host tools:
  • /usr, /opt, /etc
  • And, if present: /lib, /lib64, /bin, /sbin

SSH (safe-by-default):

• If SSH_AUTH_SOCK is set, ClaudeCage forwards only the agent socket into the sandbox (no direct access to your ${HOME}/.ssh by default).
• If you really need host SSH keys/config inside the sandbox (less secure), you can opt in:

CLAUDECAGE_ALLOW_SSH_KEYS=1 claude "Clone and inspect this repo."

Extra isolation knobs enabled by default:

• Additional unshares are enabled (like DBus, XDG runtime, X11 tmp socket), in addition to PIDs/users/hostname/tmp.

Use other model providers easily (via Claude Code Router)

If you want to route Claude Code requests to other providers/models (OpenRouter, DeepSeek, Ollama, Gemini, etc.), use the external project Claude Code Router:

• https://github.com/musistudio/claude-code-router

This is not part of ClaudeCage. Please refer to its README for full configuration details.

Minimal usage:

npm install -g @musistudio/claude-code-router
ccr code

Because ClaudeCage installs a claude binary into your ${PATH} (drop-in replacement), when Claude Code Router runs claude, it will automatically invoke the sandboxed ClaudeCage claude.

Custom API Endpoints & Proxies

claude-code-router ccr code auto configures env variables and invokes Claude Code. If you like the manual way or don't want to use claude-code-router, you can make Claude Code use a custom API endpoint by setting the following environment variables before running ClaudeCage:

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="http://localhost:3456/"
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"

claude "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-router (external) for routing Claude Code requests to multiple model providers.