Run the setup below once and every agent your team runs has a git-native rulebook it has to check over MCP before it acts, approved the same way your code already is: a merged pull request.
- Rules live in your repo as files and ship through normal PRs, not a dashboard click.
- Agents call
check_action over MCP before anything risky (a refund, a delete, a message to a customer) and get back an allow/block/escalate verdict.
- Every rule traces back to the git file and the PR that approved it, so "why did the agent do that" always has a paper trail.
Prefer not to run any of this yourself? The hosted version at gntai.dev does the same thing without you standing up a Postgres instance.
gnt prebrain scanning a repo, opening a PR, and getting it merged. A real terminal session, not a mockup.
Get started (30 seconds)
npm install -g @gnt-ai/cli
gnt login
gnt connect github
gnt prebrain
That merge lands a rule file in your connected repo, shaped like this:
your-repo/
└── rules/
├── refund-approval-threshold.md
└── contract-legal-cc.md
Each file is plain markdown with YAML frontmatter:
---
title: Never refund over $500 without a manager
status: approved
confidence: 0.91
owner_id: finance-team
source_citations: [...]
source: slack
tags: [refunds, finance]
last_validated_at: 2026-07-20
version: 1
superseded_by: null
approved_by: jane@company.com
approved_at: 2026-07-21T14:03:00Z
created_at: 2026-07-18T09:12:00Z
pr_number: 142
pr_url: https://github.com/your-org/your-repo/pull/142
---
Refunds over $500 need manager sign-off before they go out...
See it in action
There's no captured transcript to show yet (see the gap noted at the bottom of this README).
Here's the actual response shape a check_action call returns, straight from the tool's
contract:
{
"verdict": "blocked",
"reason": "Refund exceeds the $500 threshold without manager sign-off (rules/refund-approval-threshold.md)",
"cited_rules": [
{ "id": "refund-approval-threshold", "title": "Never refund over $500 without a manager" }
],
"rules_retrieved": 3
}
verdict is one of allowed, blocked, or needs_human. needs_human is the fail-closed
default: no approved rule covers the action, retrieval failed, or the check couldn't complete.
It never guesses.
What it does
One MCP endpoint, five tools:
| Tool | What it does |
|---|
check_action | Checks a described action against your approved rules before an agent takes it. Returns allowed, blocked, or needs_human with cited rules and a one-line reason. |
search_rules | Semantic search over your org's approved rules, optionally filtered by tag. An empty list means no approved rule covers the query. |
get_rule | Fetches one approved rule by id, with its provenance (who approved it, when, what it was cited from). |
list_skill_packs | Lists every compiled skill pack version for your org, newest first. |
get_skill_pack | Fetches a compiled skill pack's manifest and file list by id. |
Prerequisites
| Requirement | Check | Get it |
|---|
| Node >=22.13 | node --version | nodejs.org |
Install
| Method | Command |
|---|
| curl | curl -fsSL gntai.dev/install.sh | sh |
| npm | npm install -g @gnt-ai/cli |
gnt needs Node >=22.13. If the CLI fails to start with a version error, update Node first and confirm with node --version.
Common commands
gnt login
gnt connect github
gnt prebrain
gnt review
gnt status
gnt pull
gnt gaps
Config
| Variable | Default | What it controls |
|---|
GNT_API_URL | https://api.gntai.dev | API endpoint the CLI and MCP calls hit |
GNT_WEB_URL | https://gntai.dev | Web app used for gnt login's browser step |
GNT_CONFIG_DIR | ~/.gnt | Where credentials.json and local config live |
Privacy
- No analytics or telemetry dependency in the CLI or the web app.
gnt prebrain's default extraction mode is cloud, not on-device: your source text goes straight to Anthropic's API (or Vercel AI Gateway with zero-data-retention, if you configure it), never to gnt's own servers. Fully on-device extraction needs --mode local against a local Ollama daemon.- The extracted rule candidates still get sent to gnt's API to open the PR. Raw source text stays off gnt's servers in cloud mode; the resulting rule text doesn't.
- Rules live in your connected GitHub repo and in gnt's own database. The MCP tools read from gnt's store, not by cloning your repo on every call.
- Self-hosting:
apps/api only sends error data to Sentry if you set SENTRY_DSN yourself. Leave it unset and nothing goes out.
Team setup
- Who writes rules: anyone with access to your connected repo, either through
gnt prebrain (batch-extracted from real sources) or gnt review (hand-proposed).
- How approval works: merging the PR is the approval. There's no separate publish step.
- What gets committed:
rules/<rule-id>.md files with the frontmatter shown above and a plain markdown body.
Troubleshooting
Self-hosting: gnt login's browser step has nowhere to land. gnt login opens a browser to a /cli-login page and polls the API for the resulting key — that page is served by the hosted product's web app, which isn't part of this repo. There's no CLI-only login flow (device code or otherwise) today, and no gnt command to set a key manually. Self-hosting this stack currently means building your own thin frontend for that one route (it just needs to complete the sign-in flow and hand the CLI a key). This is a real, open gap in the self-host path, not a config issue — closing it properly means adding a CLI-only login flow.
ValueError: refusing to start: these settings still have their .env.example placeholder value... A change-me-... string is still sitting in apps/api/.env. The error names every offending field; generate a real value for each and retry.
store fails to start with GNT_STORE_INTERNAL_API_SECRET is not set. apps/store/.env wasn't filled in, or wasn't picked up. Confirm the file exists at that exact path, not still named .env.example.
Every store-to-api call gets rejected with 401 or 403, even though both services are up. STORE_INTERNAL_API_SECRET / APPROVAL_SIGNING_SECRET in apps/api/.env don't byte-for-byte match GNT_STORE_INTERNAL_API_SECRET / GNT_APPROVAL_SIGNING_SECRET in apps/store/.env. This fails closed by design. Regenerate both pairs so the two files agree.
A rule fails to save with an embedding or rerank error. apps/store/.env is missing ZEROENTROPY_API_KEY, or it's still empty. Get a real one from zeroentropy.dev.
Full command reference
gnt login
gnt logout
gnt connect <app> github, slack, notion-mcp, monday-mcp, linear-mcp, jira-mcp,
sentry-mcp, granola-mcp, zoom-mcp, figma, datadog,
gitlab-threads, hubspot, airtable, openclaw, hermes
gnt disconnect <app>
gnt status
gnt billing
gnt review
gnt pull
gnt gaps
gnt prebrain scan local sources, extract candidate rules, open batched draft
PRs (~60 flags for source paths and extraction mode, see
`gnt prebrain --help`; --mode cloud|local, cloud is the default)
gnt stale
gnt keys list|create|revoke|rotate
gnt webhook list|create|revoke
gnt org show|rename|invite|remove
Learn more
License
Copyright © 2026 gnt.ai. Licensed under Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE for the terms and NOTICE for the trademark rule on forks.
Why is this free?
Self-hosting gnt costs you nothing, forever — clone it, run docker compose up, bring your own keys. What we sell is the part self-hosting doesn't give you: hosting at gntai.dev, managed OAuth connectors (GitHub, Slack, Linear, Notion, Zendesk — no app-approval process on your end), and usage-based AI features. If you'd rather run it yourself, that's a fully supported, fully free path, not a crippled trial of the real thing.
Contributing
See CONTRIBUTING.md for dev setup and how to open a PR. Every commit needs a Signed-off-by trailer (git commit -s), the Developer Certificate of Origin instead of a CLA. No separate form, just the flag.
