How Kastra works
Choose the integration that can see and govern the action you care about.
On this page
Choose an enforcement surface
Kastra checks supported AI actions against your policies before they reach the next step in a connected workflow. Routine actions can proceed, disallowed actions stop, and sensitive actions can wait for an authorized person. Recorded decisions give security and engineering a common way to inspect the result.
New to the terms? Read core concepts. Evaluating Kastra as a supplier? Start with the security review guide and Trust Center.
| Your workflow | Integration | What it governs |
|---|---|---|
| A supported coding agent changes files or runs tools | Kastra Edge | Hook events exposed by that agent |
| Your application calls OpenAI or Anthropic | Proxy | Requests and supported model output passing through the proxy |
| An assistant calls a local MCP server | Local MCP gateway | Tool discovery and tool-call arguments |
| Your own application needs a permission decision | Evaluation API | The action your application submits; your code enforces the result |
Kastra’s hosted control plane manages policies, approvals, and recorded decisions. A separate enterprise appliance is under development for customer-operated deployments. Edge is not an offline policy engine or an operating-system sandbox. Traffic and actions outside a connected integration remain outside its coverage.
Follow one action
- The integration supplies action context to Kastra.
- The active policy is evaluated in its environment.
- An allowed action continues. A denied action stops at the integration. A supported HOLD waits for a human decision.
- Recorded decisions and approval history help your team inspect the result.
A successful installation is not evidence of enforcement. Complete the first-workflow checklist and inspect the decision for the exact action you tested.
Choose your next step
- Security leaders: review architecture and coverage, then agree on pilot acceptance criteria.
- Engineers: connect one supported surface and complete your first governed workflow.
- Operators: assign responsibilities and prepare monitoring, failure response, and recovery.
Keep inspection and enforcement separate
The account MCP connector reads Kastra governance data. It does not intercept third-party tools. The onboarding MCP starts a browser signup handoff. The gateway is the MCP surface that governs downstream tool calls.