Installing the command-line executable

Assuming you have Rust/Cargo installed, run this command in a terminal:

cargo install tnk

It will make the tnk command available in your PATH if you've allowed the PATH to be modified when installing Rust. cargo uninstall tnk uninstalls.

Back to the crate overview.

Readme

tnk (experimental)

Zero-trust sandbox for local inference and AI agent runtimes.

Quick Start · Full Docs

Quick Start

tnk demo

brew tap tappunk/tap              # or: cargo install tnk
brew install tappunk/tap/tnk
tnk init                          # populate config from tnk-specs
tnk config init                   # create ~/.config/tnk/tnk.toml
tnk run                           # boot engine + services

Then enter a project sandbox:

cd ~/code/myproject
tnk sandbox start                 # auto installs default provision
tnk sandbox shell

The agent runs in an isolated sandbox that mounts only the project workspace. Host secrets and keys stay out of scope.

What tnk does

Inference management: start, stop, and query the local inference engine
Sandbox isolation: one per-project sandbox, mounting only the workspace directory
Persistent services: MCP bridge and search tooling, managed alongside the engine
Session audit trail: optional NDJSON logs for forensic review
Machine-readable output: --output json|ndjson on status commands

Commands

tnk run              # boot engine + services
tnk sandbox shell    # enter project sandbox
tnk shutdown         # tear down everything
tnk doctor           # health checks
tnk config show      # inspect effective config

Config

Config lives at ~/.config/tnk/tnk.toml. See the full docs for all settings and options.

Security

Agents execute package installers, shell commands, and network clients with broad filesystem access. tnk keeps that execution inside isolated sandboxes, mounts only the project workspace, and exposes inference endpoints via explicit environment variables.

See Security for the full threat model.

Full documentation: https://tappunk.com/tnk/