Security: No setting to disable agent code-execution sandbox for self-hosted multi-user / team installs
Author: chirag127Created Jul 1, 2026Updated Aug 11, 2026
Summary
Khoj self-hosted supports agent code execution (via the Terrarium/sandbox feature). There is no admin setting to globally disable code execution for installations where this capability is not wanted — e.g. shared team or family installs where arbitrary code execution is a security and compliance concern.
Environment
- OS: Windows 11 Enterprise 10.0.26200
- Khoj self-hosted via Docker Desktop 4.79 (WSL2 backend)
- Multi-user self-hosted deployment (personal + team access)
Problem
On a self-hosted instance shared with other users:
- Any user can instruct a Khoj agent to execute arbitrary Python/shell code via the Terrarium sandbox
- There is no admin toggle in the settings panel to disable this capability fleet-wide
- The only mitigation is to not run the sandbox container — but this breaks the compose setup and is undocumented as a supported configuration
For a self-hosted instance whose primary purpose is semantic search / MCP knowledge retrieval (indexing notes/journal for coding agents), code execution is unnecessary and expands the attack surface significantly.
Requested feature
Add an admin setting (env var + settings panel toggle) to disable agent code execution globally:
KHOJ_DISABLE_CODE_EXECUTION=trueenv var- Corresponding toggle in admin panel under Security settings
- When disabled: code execution tool is not exposed to agents; attempts return a clear refusal message rather than a sandbox error
Related security issues
- #1347 (OS command injection via Docker Execute — directly related; disabling execution mitigates this class)
- #1327 (cross-user data leak)
- #1201 (CSRF)
Source: khoj-ai/khoj