Bartholomew (BTP v1.0.0) — In-Process Runtime Execution Gateway for Autonomous AI Agents

Deterministic AST Policy Invariant Gating, In-Flight Secret Masking, and Cryptographic Attestation for Autonomous AI Agent Swarms.

What It Does

Bartholomew is the execution gate for autonomous AI agents.

It sits between an agent and real-world execution (shell, SQL, file I/O, cloud APIs) and decides whether proposed actions should be allowed before they execute.

                    [ Autonomous Agent / LLM ]
                                │
                                ▼  (Proposes Tool Call / Bash / SQL)
  ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
  │                 Bartholomew In-Process Runtime Gateway                 │
  │                                                                        │
  │   [ Polyglot AST Invariant Gate ] ──► Sub-millisecond syntax check     │
  │   [ In-Flight Secret Vault ]       ──► Real-time credential scrubbing   │
  │   [ Declarative Policy Engine ]   ──► Spend caps & command allowlists  │
  │   [ Cryptographic Attestation ]   ──► RFC 8785 Ed25519 Signed Receipts │
  └───────────────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┘
                                      │
                         ┌────────────┴────────────┐
                         ▼                         ▼
                    [ ALLOW ]                  [ DENY ]
                         │                         │
                         ▼                         ▼
             [ Target System / DB / OS ]   [ Execution Veto + Audit Evidence ]

Core Capabilities:

• Pre-Execution Gating: Evaluates tool arguments, commands, and code strings before OS dispatch.
• Polyglot AST Parsing: Parses Abstract Syntax Trees across Python, SQL, Bash, JavaScript, and Go to block dangerous mutations (rm -rf, DROP TABLE, subshell escapes).
• In-Flight Secret Scrubbing: Detects and redacts credentials (sk-*, ghp_*, AKIA*, private keys) before they touch logs, providers, or vector stores.
• Cryptographic Auditability: Generates canonical RFC 8785 JSON digests signed with Ed25519 keys for tamper-proof verification.
• Zero Network Overhead: Evaluates locally inside the host process runtime without external API latency or second-model token billing.

Quickstart

Python

pip install btp-guard

from btp_guard import Guard

guard = Guard(spend_cap=100.0, strict=True)

# 1. Protect any tool function via decorator
@guard.protect
def execute_shell(command: str):
    return f"Executed: {command}"

# 2. Or check actions directly inline
result = guard.check("rm -rf /var/data")
if not result["allowed"]:
    print(f"Blocked: {result['reason']}")
# Output: Blocked: BTP-AST-001: Catastrophic shell pattern detected

Node.js / TypeScript

npm install btp-guard

import { Guard } from "btp-guard";

const guard = new Guard({ maxSpendUsd: 100.0 });
const verdict = guard.check("DROP TABLE users;");

if (!verdict.allowed) {
  throw new Error(`Action blocked: ${verdict.reason}`);
}

MCP Server (Model Context Protocol)

Bartholomew provides a native Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for Claude Desktop, Cursor, Windsurf, and any MCP-compatible client:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bartholomew": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": ["-m", "src.mcp_server"]
    }
  }
}

Framework Integrations

Bartholomew provides drop-in runtime interceptors for all major agent orchestrators:

Defense in Depth Architecture

Bartholomew functions as Layer 2 in the autonomous agent defense stack:

Audit & Compliance Readiness

Bartholomew generates tamper-evident audit evidence packs mapping to AICPA Trust Services Criteria (CC6.1, CC6.6, CC7.1) and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 (A.8.8, A.8.30):

python scripts/generate_soc2_compliance_evidence.py

Output: docs/audit/soc2-compliance-evidence.json containing SHA-256 Merkle proofs, RFC 8785 canonical digests, and Ed25519 digital signatures for zero-network independent auditor verification.

Development & Test Suite

# Clone repository
git clone https://github.com/bartholomew-ai/bartholomew.git
cd bartholomew

# Install dependencies
pip install -e ".[test]"

# Run full test suite (2,920 automated tests)
python -m pytest -q

Documentation

• docs/quickstart.md — Full setup and configuration guide
• docs/threat-model.md — Threat model and security boundaries
• docs/btp-protocol-spec.md — BTP wire protocol specification
• docs/FRAMEWORK_GUIDE.md — Framework adapter documentation
• SECURITY.md — Vulnerability disclosure policy
• CONTRIBUTING.md — Contributing guidelines

License

Bartholomew is distributed under the MIT License.