Buckle: Let AI agent work on remote machine without giving SSH access

Posted on Nov 5 • Edited on Nov 5 • AI-assisted

Buckle was built to give AI agents cross-device access without full device access. Please join the early access and provide feedback, ideas, and anything else that helps make it a better cross-device access MCP!

Buckle is a remote execution harness that runs on your machines. It gives AI agents scoped access to a machine's environment, whether that is a container, a remote server, or your laptop. Connect the device that runs the AI agent to Buckle over HTTP, and let the agent do the work for you.

I'm building a bigger ecosystem for AI agents, 5straps, to provide a centralized, auditable agent network for enterprise use. Buckle is one of the components on the way there.

Buckle has one end goal: simplify and scope the same AI agent's access to the environments you give it.

For personal use: Give the AI agent in your coding server container access to your laptop to run autonomous browser testing, and to set up and deploy the project on the VPS you rented. Duplicate the repo and setup on another device you own, for working on the go.

For teams and enterprises: Expose your test servers only through the tools your team's AI agents need to run inspections and deployment fixes. More support for teams and enterprises comes later.

One agent, three Buckle environments. The server runs npm test and npm run build but refuses a curl install that is not on its command allow list, browser A reads the nodejs.org page title, and browser B is blocked from following a link to iana.org.

It hosts an MCP server over HTTP (or stdio for local use) with the tools and approval rules you set, such as file access, a sandboxed shell, web fetch, a browser, and Git once you turn it on.

For new or unknown actions, the user can approve or deny them.

Left, an agent's MCP calls. Right, me in buckle approvals --watch. The agent's rm -rf dist is held. I see the whole action and deny it. The agent gets PERMISSION_DENIED, lists dist and finds the files intact, then tries a web_fetch to github.com and is refused: not on the approved list.

Every call is allowed, asked, or denied before anything runs. Deny wins.

npm i -g @5straps/buckle # Node.js 24 or newer cd ~/some/project buckle init claude mcp add buckle -- buckle mcp Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode In a second terminal, in the same folder:

buckle approvals --watch Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode Limits Platforms: Tested in Linux and partially in Windows. Note: Linux runs commands in sandbox via bubblewrap, while no sandbox for other platforms. Command reading: Buckle asks about or refuses a command it cannot read whole.

A script file on disk is not read: bash deploy.sh is judged by those two words. Credential hiding: covers common shapes, and only in what the approver sees. URL list: blocking clicked links holds in the default fresh browser, not with a profile folder or an attached Chrome.

Service: buckle service install starts the node at login. Next More tools through plugins, starting with desktop control on agent-desktop. Simpler deployment.

Exportable rules. Enterprise support on request. Feedback What would stop you from using it?

Report bugs and request features in GitHub issues. Ask questions and share ideas in Discussions. If you run agents on real machines and can spare 15 minutes, say so there.

Repo: wuiyang/5straps-buckle, Apache-2.0. Package: @5straps/buckle.