How to Add AI Agent Safety to Your CI/CD Pipeline

Integrating AI agent safety checks into your CI/CD pipeline ensures that no policy change, agent configuration, or code modification ships to production without validation. SafeClaw by Authensor provides a CLI that runs policy validation and simulation tests as part of your build process, catching unsafe agent behaviors before deployment. With 446 tests backing the engine itself, you can trust the validation step to be thorough and correct.

Quick Start

npx @authensor/safeclaw

This scaffolds a .safeclaw/ directory in your project. Once policies are defined, you can validate them in CI.

Step 1: Add Policy Validation to Your Build

SafeClaw includes a validate command that checks all policy files for syntax errors, conflicting rules, and unreachable conditions:

# .github/workflows/ai-safety.yml
name: AI Agent Safety Checks
on: [push, pull_request]

jobs:
  policy-validation:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

- name: Install SafeClaw
        run: npx @authensor/safeclaw --init

- name: Validate Policies
        run: npx @authensor/safeclaw validate
        # Exits non-zero if policies are invalid

- name: Run Policy Simulation Tests
        run: npx @authensor/safeclaw test
        # Runs all .safeclaw/tests/*.test.yaml files

Step 2: Write Simulation Tests

SafeClaw's simulation mode lets you write test cases that verify your policies behave as expected. These tests run without any real agent execution:

# .safeclaw/tests/file-access.test.yaml
tests:
  - name: "Agent can write to src directory"
    action: file.write
    input:
      path: "src/components/Button.tsx"
    expect:
      effect: allow
      matchedRule: "allow-src-writes"

- name: "Agent cannot write to .env"
    action: file.write
    input:
      path: ".env"
    expect:
      effect: deny
      matchedRule: "block-config-writes"

- name: "Agent cannot run rm -rf"
    action: shell.execute
    input:
      command: "rm -rf /"
    expect:
      effect: deny
      matchedRule: "block-destructive-commands"

- name: "Agent cannot push to main"
    action: shell.execute
    input:
      command: "git push origin main"
    expect:
      effect: deny
      matchedRule: "block-main-push"

Step 3: Gate Deployment on Safety Checks

Make safety checks a required status check for merging and deployment:

# .github/workflows/deploy.yml
name: Deploy
on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  safety-gate:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

- name: Validate Policies
        run: npx @authensor/safeclaw validate

- name: Run Safety Simulation Tests
        run: npx @authensor/safeclaw test

deploy:
    needs: safety-gate
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Deploy Application
        run: ./deploy.sh

In your GitHub repository settings, mark safety-gate as a required status check. No deployment proceeds unless all safety tests pass.

Step 4: Policy Diff in Pull Requests

Add a step that comments the policy diff on PRs, so reviewers can see exactly what agent permissions are changing:

      - name: Policy Diff
        if: github.event_name == 'pull_request'
        run: |
          npx @authensor/safeclaw diff --base origin/main --format markdown > policy-diff.md

- name: Comment PR
        if: github.event_name == 'pull_request'
        uses: actions/github-script@v7
        with:
          script: |
            const fs = require('fs');
            const diff = fs.readFileSync('policy-diff.md', 'utf8');
            if (diff.trim()) {
              github.rest.issues.createComment({
                issue_number: context.issue.number,
                owner: context.repo.owner,
                repo: context.repo.repo,
                body: ## SafeClaw Policy Changes\n\n${diff}
              });
            }

Why SafeClaw

• 446 tests — the engine itself is thoroughly tested, so your CI validation is reliable
• Deny-by-default — new actions are automatically blocked until policies are updated
• Sub-millisecond evaluation — policy validation and simulation tests run fast in CI
• Hash-chained audit trail — every production action is logged for post-deployment audit
• Works with Claude AND OpenAI — one CI pipeline validates safety for any LLM provider

Cross-References

• CI/CD Pipeline Agent Use Case
• GitHub Actions CI Agent Guide
• How to Test AI Agent Safety Policies
• Simulation Mode Explained