Getting started

Guardrail is one binary. Install it, activate it, start it, then point a tool at it. Nothing here needs an API key.

1. Install

The installer downloads the release for your platform, verifies its checksum, and puts the guardrail binary on your PATH.

curl -fsSL https://neatproxy.com/install.sh | bash

macOS and Linux run it natively. On Windows, run it inside WSL2 while a native build is in progress.

2. Activate

Activation attaches your plan to this machine. Get a code from the get page— it is emailed to you, and the 7 day clock starts when you activate, not when you request it.

guardrail activate <code>

On a Free plan you can skip straight past this; the local firewall, policies and dashboard work without an account.

3. Start the proxy

guardrail start

This runs the daemon in the background, bound to 127.0.0.1:4000, and serves the dashboard at localhost:4000. Use guardrail status to check on it and guardrail stop to shut it down.

4. Connect a tool

Connecting edits that tool’s own configuration file to point at Guardrail. It preserves the file’s permissions, and guardrail disconnect restores what was there before.

guardrail connect claude-code
guardrail connect codex

Step by step for each: Claude Code and Codex.

5. Set a budget

Tracking alone changes nothing. Open protectionsin the dashboard and set a per-session spend cap — that is the point at which Guardrail starts refusing calls instead of only counting them. See budgets and policies.

Useful commands