Docker Deployment

Run Crawdad as a sidecar container alongside your AI agents. All scanning happens inside the Crawdad container, content stays within your Docker network by default.

Quick start

services:
  crawdad:
    image: andrewsispoidis/crawdad-sidecar:latest
    environment:
      - CRAWDAD_LICENSE_KEY=${CRAWDAD_LICENSE_KEY}
      - CRAWDAD_BIND=0.0.0.0
    ports:
      - "7749:7749"  # Security API
      - "7748:7748"  # Anthropic proxy
      - "7747:7747"  # OpenAI proxy
      - "7746:7746"  # Google Gemini proxy
    restart: always

  your-agent:
    image: your-agent-image
    environment:
      - ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://crawdad:7748
      - OPENAI_BASE_URL=http://crawdad:7747/v1
    depends_on:
      - crawdad

Set ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://crawdad:7748 in your agent container. The agent's provider chat traffic then flows through Crawdad's multi-layer detection pipeline automatically. No code changes needed.

How the proxy works

Crawdad runs transparent proxy listeners for each AI provider. Your agent's SDK sends requests to Crawdad instead of the real API. Crawdad scans the message, forwards clean requests to the real API, and returns the response. Blocked requests get a provider-native error response that SDKs handle correctly.

Environment variables

Variable	Default	Description
CRAWDAD_LICENSE_KEY		Your Crawdad license key
CRAWDAD_BIND	0.0.0.0	Bind address (0.0.0.0 in Docker, 127.0.0.1 on host)
CRAWDAD_PORT	7749	Port to listen on
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL		Set to http://crawdad:7748 in agent container for transparent proxy
OPENAI_BASE_URL		Set to http://crawdad:7747/v1 for OpenAI proxy (the /v1 suffix is required)
CRAWDAD_FAIL_MODE	fail_closed	What the proxy does when it cannot inspect a request (e.g. an unparseable body): fail_closed (default) blocks with 422; fail_open forwards uninspected.

Enforce mode in containers. The default is Monitor, which needs no extra privileges. Under Enforce, Crawdad installs an iptables default-deny egress lock, which requires the NET_ADMIN capability in the container. See the Enforce mode guide.

Build from source

# From the repo root:
docker build -t andrewsispoidis/crawdad-sidecar:latest -f crawdad-sidecar/Dockerfile .

Health check

curl http://crawdad:7749/v1/health
# {"status":"ok","version":"1.7.1","mode":"zero-knowledge"}

Troubleshooting

Kubernetes deployment guide →