Air-Gapped Enterprise¶

Run evaluations in secure environments with no external network access.

The Problem¶

Many organizations cannot use cloud-based AI evaluation tools:

Financial services — PCI-DSS, SOC 2 compliance
Healthcare — HIPAA, patient data protection
Government — FedRAMP, classified environments
Defense — Air-gapped networks, ITAR

These environments prohibit: - Sending prompts/data to external APIs - Using cloud observability platforms - Network access from build servers

The Solution¶

Assay can evaluate captured local evidence without a hosted Assay service. For an air-gapped deployment, use local traces and policies, keep live replay and remote providers disabled, and enforce the network boundary at the host or container layer. The release archive provides a CLI binary and does not require an Assay cloud account.

Architecture¶

Hosted Data Path¶

┌─────────────┐     ┌─────────────┐     ┌─────────────┐
│  Your Agent │ ──► │  Cloud API  │ ──► │  Dashboard  │
│   (Local)   │     │ (Internet)  │     │  (Internet) │
└─────────────┘     └─────────────┘     └─────────────┘
                           │
                    ❌ Data leaves
                       your network

Offline Assay Deployment¶

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                  Your Network                        │
│                                                      │
│  ┌─────────────┐     ┌─────────────┐                │
│  │    Assay    │ ──► │   Reports   │                │
│  │   (Local)   │     │   (Local)   │                │
│  └─────────────┘     └─────────────┘                │
│         │                                            │
│         ▼                                            │
│  ┌─────────────┐                                    │
│  │   SQLite    │     Local evidence store            │
│  │   (Local)   │                                    │
│  └─────────────┘                                    │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Setup¶

1. Install (Offline)¶

Download the binary on a connected machine:

# On a connected x86_64 Linux machine
curl -fLO https://github.com/Rul1an/assay/releases/download/v6.4.0/assay-v6.4.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
curl -fLO https://github.com/Rul1an/assay/releases/download/v6.4.0/assay-v6.4.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz.sha256
sha256sum -c assay-v6.4.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz.sha256

Transfer to air-gapped environment:

# On the air-gapped x86_64 Linux machine
tar -xzf assay-v6.4.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
sudo install -m 0755 assay-v6.4.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/assay /usr/local/bin/assay
assay --version

2. Transfer Traces¶

Record sessions on a connected dev machine, then transfer:

# On dev machine
assay import --format inspector session.json

# Transfer
scp traces/session.jsonl air-gapped-server:/data/traces/

3. Run Tests (Offline)¶

# On air-gapped machine — no network needed
assay run \
  --config eval.yaml \
  --trace-file /data/traces/session.jsonl \
  --db :memory:

CI/CD in Air-Gapped Environments¶

Self-Hosted GitLab¶

# .gitlab-ci.yml
agent-tests:
  stage: test
  tags:
    - air-gapped-runner
  script:
    - assay run --config eval.yaml --strict
  artifacts:
    reports:
      junit: .assay/reports/junit.xml

Jenkins (On-Prem)¶

pipeline {
    agent { label 'secure-zone' }
    stages {
        stage('Test') {
            steps {
                sh 'assay ci --config eval.yaml --trace-file traces/golden.jsonl --junit .assay/reports/junit.xml'
            }
        }
    }
    post {
        always {
            junit '.assay/reports/junit.xml'
        }
    }
}

Azure DevOps (Self-Hosted)¶

pool:
  name: 'SecurePool'  # Self-hosted agent pool

steps:
  - script: assay run --config eval.yaml --strict
    displayName: 'Run Agent Tests'

Control Evidence Mapping¶

The following outputs can support an organization's control assessment. They do not establish compliance, certification, or the behavior of systems outside the captured evidence.

SOC 2¶

Control	Assay Feature
CC6.1 — Logical access	Locally enforced network boundary and policy configuration
CC7.2 — System monitoring	Local audit logs
CC8.1 — Change management	Policy-as-code, Git versioned

HIPAA¶

Requirement	Assay Feature
§164.312(a) — Access control	Local policy and execution records
§164.312(b) — Audit controls	Trace recording, local storage
§164.312(e) — Transmission security	Host-level network controls and captured connection evidence

FedRAMP¶

Control	Assay Feature
AC-4 — Information flow	Host-level network controls and captured connection evidence
AU-3 — Audit content	SARIF/JUnit reports
SC-7 — Boundary protection	Deployment inside an operator-managed boundary

Data Handling¶

What Stays Local¶

Data	Location
Traces	`./traces/*.jsonl`
Policies	`./policies/*.yaml`
Config	`./eval.yaml`
Cache	`./.assay/store.db`
Reports	`./.assay/reports/`

Network Boundary¶

Assay does not require an Assay-hosted telemetry or licensing service. Features configured with a remote provider or exporter can make outbound calls, so an air-gapped deployment must leave those features disabled and enforce its boundary independently. Verify the selected workflow under the same host policy used in production:

# Example observation only; an empty trace is not proof that every relevant probe attached.
strace -f -e trace=network assay run --config eval.yaml --trace-file traces/session.jsonl

Offline Updates¶

Check for Updates (Connected Machine)¶

curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/Rul1an/assay/releases/latest | jq -r '.tag_name'

Download and Transfer¶

# Connected machine
curl -fLO https://github.com/Rul1an/assay/releases/download/v6.4.0/assay-v6.4.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
curl -fLO https://github.com/Rul1an/assay/releases/download/v6.4.0/assay-v6.4.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz.sha256
sha256sum -c assay-v6.4.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz.sha256

# Transfer and install
scp assay-v6.4.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz air-gapped-server:/tmp/
ssh air-gapped-server 'cd /tmp && tar -xzf assay-v6.4.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz && sudo install -m 0755 assay-v6.4.0-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/assay /usr/local/bin/assay'

Containers¶

Air-gapped deployments use the verified release archives and checksums described above; a signed container image of assay-mcp-server is published for connected environments (see the installation guide). The repository does not ship a root Dockerfile, and docker/Dockerfile.ebpf-builder builds the eBPF toolchain only.

Install the verified binary on the air-gapped CI runner host or bake that binary into an organization-owned image using an internal build process. Assay does not provide or verify that image recipe.

Troubleshooting¶

"Connection refused" Errors¶

If an offline workflow attempts a connection, inspect the selected provider, exporter, replay mode, and host policy. Do not infer hermeticity from an empty application log; use host-level enforcement and observation with an explicit positive control.

# Offline replay denies outbound access in the core policy layer by default.
assay replay --bundle run.assay-replay

Missing Dependencies¶

On minimal Linux installations:

# Install required libs (if not statically linked)
apt-get install -y libssl-dev ca-certificates

Permission Issues¶

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/assay