DLP for Planner-Executor Agents

When a contractor finishes a short‑term engagement, the organization often leaves their automation scripts, planner‑executor agents, running in the CI pipeline. Those agents have been granted broad read/write permissions to internal databases and message queues. From a dlp perspective, the risk is that the agents can continue to pull customer data and write it to an external storage bucket, creating a silent data‑leak scenario that goes unnoticed until an audit.

Most teams rely on static service accounts or long‑lived tokens for these agents. The agents connect directly to the target system, bypassing any central control point. The result is a pipeline that can exfiltrate personally identifiable information, credit‑card numbers, or proprietary code without any real‑time visibility, and without any guarantee that sensitive fields are being protected.

Why dlp alone is insufficient

Data loss prevention (dlp) policies require three things: identification of sensitive fields, enforcement at the point of access, and audit evidence that the policy was applied. In the current model, the planner‑executor agent authenticates directly to the database using a static credential. The authentication layer can confirm the identity of the service account, but it cannot inspect the payload of each query. No inline masking occurs, no command‑level approval is required, and no session is recorded for later review. The dlp goal is therefore unmet because the enforcement point is missing.

The missing enforcement point is the data path. Even if the organization configures OIDC or SAML to issue short‑lived tokens, those tokens still travel straight to the target. The request reaches the database or message broker unchanged, and the system has no way to intervene, redact, or log the exact data that flowed through the connection.

Introducing hoop.dev as the data‑path gateway

hoop.dev is a Layer 7 gateway that sits between planner‑executor agents and the infrastructure they need to reach. It acts as an identity‑aware proxy: agents present an OIDC or SAML token, hoop.dev validates the token, extracts group membership, and then decides whether the request may proceed. Because hoop.dev sits in the data path, it can inspect every protocol message before it reaches the target.

When a planner‑executor agent initiates a database connection, hoop.dev forwards the request to the internal agent that holds the actual database credential. The agent never sees the token or the user’s secret. hoop.dev then applies dlp controls in real time: it masks columns that match configured patterns, blocks statements that attempt to export bulk data, and can route suspicious queries to a human approver before execution.

All interactions are recorded. hoop.dev creates a replay‑able session log that captures the exact query, the masked response, and the identity of the requesting agent. This log satisfies audit requirements and provides forensic evidence for any dlp investigation.

How the architecture meets each dlp requirement

• Identification: hoop.dev’s configuration lets you declare sensitive field patterns (e.g., credit‑card regex, SSN format). The gateway scans inbound and outbound payloads for matches.
• Enforcement: Because the gateway sits on the wire, it can replace detected values with placeholders, reject the request, or trigger a just‑in‑time approval workflow.
• Audit: Every session is persisted outside the target system, providing a persistent trail that auditors can review without impacting production workloads.

Setup considerations

The only prerequisite is an identity provider that can issue OIDC or SAML tokens. hoop.dev consumes those tokens, so the planner‑executor agents do not need to manage credentials themselves. You register each target resource (PostgreSQL, MySQL, etc.) in hoop.dev, and the gateway stores the connection credential securely. The agents simply point to the gateway address, and hoop.dev handles the rest.

This separation of responsibilities means that the “who” is decided by the identity provider (setup), while the “what”, masking, blocking, logging, is enforced exclusively by hoop.dev (data path). Removing hoop.dev would revert the system to the original unsafe state where no dlp enforcement occurs.

FAQ

Does hoop.dev replace existing database credentials?

No. The gateway stores the credential and presents it to the target on behalf of the agent. The agent never sees the secret, preserving the principle of least privilege.

Can I use hoop.dev with existing CI pipelines?

Yes. The pipeline’s planner‑executor step simply points its database client to the hoop.dev endpoint. All masking and logging happen transparently.

What happens if a query is blocked?

hoop.dev returns an error to the agent, optionally including a reason. If the query is flagged for approval, the workflow can be routed to a designated reviewer who can grant a one‑time token to continue.

For a hands‑on start, see the getting‑started guide and the broader feature overview at hoop.dev/learn. The full source code and contribution guidelines are available on GitHub.