CLI Reference

kiteguard init

Registers kiteguard hooks for a specific AI agent.

Claude Code

Writes all four hooks to ~/.claude/settings.json and creates the ~/.kiteguard/ config directory.

kiteguard init --claude-code

Cursor

Writes 10 hooks (with failClosed: true on all blocking hooks) to both .cursor/hooks.json (project-level) and ~/.cursor/hooks.json (user-level).

kiteguard init --cursor

Gemini CLI

Writes hooks to .gemini/settings.json in the current project directory.

kiteguard init --gemini

Re-run after updating the binary. You can run multiple init commands to protect all agents simultaneously.

kiteguard serve

Launches the local web dashboard at http://localhost:7070.

kiteguard serve

The dashboard provides a real-time view of all audit events with filtering, pagination, and block-reason detail. See the Console reference for full details.

kiteguard audit

Pretty-prints the local audit log.

kiteguard audit

Output:

TIMESTAMP                      HOOK                      VERDICT    RULE
2026-03-28T10:23:01Z           PreToolUse                🚫 block   dangerous_command
2026-03-28T10:24:10Z           UserPromptSubmit          ✅ allow

kiteguard audit verify

Verifies the tamper-evident hash chain of the audit log.

kiteguard audit verify

Output on success:

✅  audit chain intact — 142 entries verified

Output on failure:

❌  hash mismatch at entry 87 — log may have been tampered with

kiteguard policy

kiteguard policy list    # show active policy summary
kiteguard policy path    # print path to rules.json
kiteguard policy sign    # sign the current rules.json (HMAC-SHA256)

kiteguard test

Dry-run any input against the active policy without blocking a real tool call. Useful for validating policy changes in CI or local development.

kiteguard test <type> <input>
kiteguard test --json <type> <input>   # machine-readable JSON output

Types

Exit codes

Examples

kiteguard test command "rm -rf /"
# ✗  BLOCK
#    type:   command
#    input:  rm -rf /
#    rule:   dangerous_command
#    reason: matched /rm\s+-rf\s+// in 'rm -rf /'

kiteguard test --json url "http://169.254.169.254/latest"
# {"verdict":"block","type":"url","input":"http://169.254.169.254/latest","rule":"ssrf","reason":"..."}

kiteguard test read "~/.ssh/id_rsa"
# ✗  BLOCK

Using in CI

# .github/workflows/policy-check.yml
- name: Validate policy
  run: |
    kiteguard test command "rm -rf /" && exit 1 || true   # should block
    kiteguard test command "ls -la"                        # should allow

kiteguard explain

Print every active rule in human-readable form. Use this after editing rules.json to confirm the policy looks correct.

kiteguard explain              # explain all sections
kiteguard explain bash         # bash block/allow patterns only
kiteguard explain paths        # file path rules
kiteguard explain pii          # PII types
kiteguard explain urls         # URL blocklist and allowlist
kiteguard explain injection    # injection detector status

Example output

kiteguard — Active Policy Explanation
======================================
Policy version: 1.0.0

[bash] Command execution protection
  Status: ENABLED
  Fail-closed: true

  Block patterns (18):
    - curl[^|]*\|[^|]*(bash|sh)  →  Blocks download-and-execute pipe attacks
    - rm\s+-rf\s+/               →  Blocks recursive force-delete of critical directories
    ...

[paths] File path protection
  Blocked reads (7):
    - **/.ssh/**
    ...

kiteguard policy

kiteguard policy list    # show active policy summary
kiteguard policy path    # print path to rules.json
kiteguard policy sign    # sign the current rules.json (HMAC-SHA256)

kiteguard --version

kiteguard --version
# kiteguard 0.2.0