How to Run Sortie in a Network-Restricted Environment

Sortie can run on a host without public internet access when its configured services are reachable. An air-gapped setup also needs a coding agent that can work with the model endpoint and tools available inside that network. Installing the Sortie binary alone does not make a cloud-backed agent work offline.

Bring the binary into the network

On a connected machine, follow manual installation and download the platform archive and checksums.txt from the same release. Releases provide Linux and macOS tar.gz archives and Windows zip archives, for amd64 and arm64, named sortie_<version>_<os>_<arch>. Software bills of materials are attached to releases too.

For example, with a chosen Linux amd64 release archive already downloaded:

sha256sum sortie_<version>_linux_amd64.tar.gz

Compare the result with that archive’s entry in checksums.txt before extracting it. On macOS use shasum -a 256; on Windows use Get-FileHash -Algorithm SHA256. Transfer the verified binary, sortie or sortie.exe, through your approved transfer process to a directory on the restricted host’s PATH. Keep the release version and checksum with the transfer record.

The release binary is statically linked and needs no runtime libraries on the target host. The install scripts fetch from GitHub at installation time, so do not depend on them being able to run on the restricted host. The Docker guide covers the published ghcr.io/sortie-ai/sortie image and building an image with an agent; mirror the required images into an internal registry when public registries are unavailable.

Plan Sortie’s connections

Allow the destinations your workflow names, plus the price list download described below, rather than a fixed list of public vendor hosts:

Sortie has no automatic update check and sends no telemetry. Its dashboard assets are embedded in the binary and do not need an external CDN. The coding agent and workspace hooks have their own network requirements, described below.

Decide about the price list download

Sortie downloads a public model price list from raw.githubusercontent.com when it starts and every 24 hours after, to price runs on models newer than your Sortie version. The request carries no run data and no configuration. It goes through the same proxy environment variables as the other connections.

On a host that cannot reach it, nothing stops. The download never blocks startup or dispatch. Sortie logs a price table download failed warning and tries again after 1 minute, then 2, 4, and so on up to 1 hour, until one succeeds. Runs are priced from the table built into the binary and from any token_rates entries, so a model released after your Sortie version can show as unpriced.

Pick one of three:

• Turn the download off with price_table.fetch: false or SORTIE_PRICE_TABLE_FETCH=false. The retry warnings stop.
• Host the file internally and set price_table.fetch_url to its address. The file must be in the same format as the default one.
• Supply your own table with price_table.replace_file, or with price_table.replace_url to download it from an internal server. A replace_url download runs whatever price_table.fetch says, so reach that address or leave the key unset.

See price_table and the runtime download rules for validation and the copy kept beside the database.

Inbound access is a separate choice: the HTTP server serves the dashboard, JSON API, /metrics, and health probes, and tracker webhooks are optional. Bind and expose only what operators need. See the HTTP API reference and security model before exposing a listener beyond the host.

Point adapters at internal services

The endpoint forms differ by adapter:

Configure reaction-provider overrides as well as the tracker if those reactions use a different forge. The workflow reference describes their fallback rules. Do not substitute the tracker URL for a separate provider’s endpoint without checking which API it expects.

Configure proxies and private certificate authorities

Sortie’s HTTP clients use Go’s standard transport. Set HTTPS_PROXY, HTTP_PROXY, and NO_PROXY in the environment of the Sortie process when a proxy is required. Include internal hosts that should be reached directly in NO_PROXY. These are transport environment variables, not WORKFLOW.md keys.

There is no Sortie-specific custom CA bundle setting. Install the internal certificate authority in the host’s trust store. On Linux, Go also supports SSL_CERT_FILE and SSL_CERT_DIR for certificate locations. Keep TLS verification enabled; a proxy route does not make an untrusted certificate valid.

Prepare the agent host and workspace hooks

Sortie launches a coding-agent CLI as a subprocess, locally or over SSH. It does not call a model API itself. Install that CLI on the agent host and configure its model endpoint using the CLI’s own supported configuration. Verify the agent independently inside the restricted network before asking Sortie to schedule it.

Locally launched agents inherit Sortie’s process environment, including proxy and model-endpoint variables. An SSH worker uses its remote environment plus the variables Sortie explicitly carries. Runtime credential variables can be carried automatically; other names need ssh_pass_env, and ssh_disallow_pass_env prevents Sortie from carrying a name. Do not assume local proxy or model settings automatically reach an SSH worker. See remote environment handling.

Sortie disables OpenCode’s auto-update on every launch. A Gemini CLI launched on the agent-client-protocol kind locally also gets telemetry variables from Sortie, but they target a local file and name no remote destination. Update checks and vendor telemetry for every other agent CLI are controlled by those CLIs; consult their documentation and configure them on the agent host. Sortie’s own lack of telemetry is not a guarantee about a child process. See outbound data posture.

Workspace hooks that clone or fetch repositories need the forge reachable from the machine executing that operation. Hooks run on the orchestrator; in an SSH setup, a hook that explicitly invokes ssh to clone runs that clone on the remote host. The SSH guide shows the distinction. Preinstall any toolchains and dependencies the agent needs, or supply reachable internal mirrors.

Keep local state writable and validate first

The SQLite database uses db_path, defaulting to .sortie.db next to WORKFLOW.md; it needs no network service. Workspaces use workspace.root. Give the process writable paths for both and follow the persistence guidance when arranging backups.

On the restricted host, start with:

sortie validate WORKFLOW.md

This checks configuration offline. It does not prove that tokens authenticate, endpoints are reachable, the agent can contact its model, or hooks can fetch a repository. Verify those connections separately before starting unattended work.

Before the first run, provide:

• The platform binary, its release version, and verified checksum.
• Internal tracker and forge endpoints with the required tokens.
• A direct route or configured proxy to each enabled destination, and either the price list download turned off or its address reachable.
• The internal CA in the relevant host trust stores.
• The agent CLI and a model endpoint reachable from its host.
• Writable database and workspace paths, plus any internal dependency mirrors the workflow needs.