kars CLI — @kars-runtime/cli

The command-line interface for kars — a secure AI agent runtime on Azure. Run OpenClaw (and other) agents in isolated sandboxes with end-to-end encrypted inter-agent messaging, egress control, and policy governance — locally on Docker/kind or on AKS.

Install

npm i -g @kars-runtime/cli

This installs the kars command. (Node.js 22+ required.)

No-compile alternative — the public installer pulls the latest signed release:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Azure/kars/main/install.sh | bash

Quick start

# Run a sandboxed agent from the published, cosign-signed images (no compile)
kars dev --release

# …or on a local Kubernetes (kind) cluster — real K8s posture
kars dev --release --target local-k8s

On first launch you pick an inference provider — GitHub Copilot is easiest (one device-code login, no Azure account). Then talk to your agent:

kars connect dev-agent

When you're ready for a managed cluster:

kars up --name prod-agent --region swedencentral --release   # provisions AKS + Foundry + the full stack from signed public images (no build)

Common commands

| Command | What it does | |---|---| | kars dev --release | Run a sandbox from published images (Docker), no compile | | kars dev --release --target local-k8s | Same, on a local kind cluster | | kars connect <name> | Open the agent chat TUI | | kars up --release | Provision AKS + ACR + Foundry from signed public images (no build) | | kars add | Add a sandbox / runtime to an existing deployment | | kars operator | Live operator dashboard (agents, mesh, security posture) | | kars --help | Full command list |

Security & provenance

Every published kars artefact — container images and this CLI tarball — is cosign keyless-signed, ships an SPDX SBOM, and carries a SLSA build provenance attestation. The CLI is published to npm via OIDC trusted publishing (no long-lived tokens). Verify with npm audit signatures, cosign verify, and gh attestation verify.

Links

• Repository & docs: https://github.com/Azure/kars
• Getting started: https://github.com/Azure/kars/blob/main/docs/getting-started.md
• License: MIT

kars is an open-source reference implementation maintained under the Azure GitHub organization. Not an officially supported Microsoft product.