> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://warden.buildlab.in/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Warden

> The warden between your agents and your database. Agents get database superpowers, not database destruction powers.

![Warden](https://mintcdn.com/buildlab/k84OmcUTQRsXw-0Y/images/warden-banner.svg?fit=max\&auto=format\&n=k84OmcUTQRsXw-0Y\&q=85\&s=935a74c0f13af1de9f443b71c34b2b42)

Warden is a **governed data-access runtime for AI agents**. It runs as a server between your agents and your database, holds the credentials the agents never see, and decides what each agent may read, propose, and commit.

```
   Before:   Agent ─────────────────────────────▶ Database
                    full access · forever · unlogged


   After:    Agent ──MCP/HTTP──▶ Warden Gateway ──▶ Database
                                       │
                                       ▼
                           you, only when it matters
```

> [!NOTE]
>
> **Warden is a binary you run, not a package you import.** That is the product's central design decision, not an implementation detail — see [Is Warden a Go package?](https://warden.buildlab.in/offerings/go-module.md). Your agent points at Warden instead of at the database; its code barely changes.

## What you can install today

> [card] [warden](https://warden.buildlab.in/offerings/gateway.md)
>
> The gateway. Parses, classifies, governs, and audits every operation, and holds the database credentials.

> [card] [warden-mcp](https://warden.buildlab.in/offerings/mcp-server.md)
>
> An MCP server so any MCP-speaking agent (Claude Code, Claude Desktop) reaches the gateway as a tool.

> [card] [wardencert](https://warden.buildlab.in/offerings/wardencert.md)
>
> The certification harness. Proves a connector's guarantees against a real database rather than asserting them.

> [card] [Container image](https://warden.buildlab.in/offerings/container.md)
>
> A distroless image running as a non-root user, plus a compose file that brings up Warden and PostgreSQL together.

## Why it exists

Give an agent a database connection and you have handed it a permanent, unscoped, unaudited capability. Warden replaces that connection with a governed one:

| Problem | What Warden does |
| - | - |
| You cannot see what the agent does to the database | **Debug Mode** — a breakpoint debugger for database traffic. Step, continue, or reject each operation |
| You cannot let it write to production | **Approvals** — changes become proposals with an exact before/after preview and a human decision |
| One missing `WHERE` wipes a table | **Blast-radius analysis** — whether an operation is provably bounded, decided before it runs |
| The diff someone approved is not the change that happened | **Commit-time fences** — the records are re-checked at approval; if they moved, the commit is refused |
| Customer data reaches a model's prompt | **Masking inside the statement**, so no alias or join gets around it |
| After an incident nobody can reconstruct what happened | **Tamper-evident audit** — hash-chained, with the agent, its reason, the rules that fired, and the reviewer |

## The honest part

Databases differ in what they can enforce. Every guarantee is labelled with who actually provides it — `native` (the engine), `enforced` (Warden, by rewriting the statement), `advisory` (observed, not prevented), or `unavailable` — and a connection whose engine cannot meet its policy **refuses to start**. See [the capability ladder](https://warden.buildlab.in/concepts/capability-ladder.md).

> [!WARNING]
>
> **Status.** PostgreSQL is the reference connector, MongoDB the second engine, and Neo4j the third; all three are certified against a real server on every commit. MySQL is designed for but not built. Nothing here describes an engine that does not work — where a feature is planned, the page says so.

> [card] [Quickstart](https://warden.buildlab.in/quickstart.md)
>
> A governed PostgreSQL in about five minutes, with Docker.

> [card] [Everything on offer](https://warden.buildlab.in/offerings/overview.md)
>
> Every artefact, what it is for, and how it is distributed.


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