Guardrails & Safety for Agents

Agents have the power to take real-world actions — which means they can also cause real-world harm. Without guardrails, an agent might delete critical files, send embarrassing emails, spend thousands of dollars on API calls, or get stuck in an infinite loop. This lesson covers input/output validation, action sandboxing, human-in-the-loop patterns, rate limiting, and preventing runaway agents.

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Why Guardrails Are Essential

Risk	Example
Data loss	Agent deletes production database records
Financial damage	Agent makes unlimited API calls, costing thousands
Security breach	Agent exfiltrates sensitive data via a tool call
Reputation damage	Agent sends incorrect emails to customers
Infinite loops	Agent calls the same tool repeatedly with no progress
Prompt injection	Malicious input causes agent to bypass instructions

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Input Validation

Validate all inputs before they reach the agent:

from pydantic import BaseModel, validator
import re

class AgentInput(BaseModel):
    task: str
    user_id: str
    max_steps: int = 10