Sentient is a free, open source tool that records everything your coding agent actually does, so you can replay exactly what happened instead of trusting the agent’s own summary. The product appeared on Show HN on 7 November 2026. You can read the launch thread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50409020.
What it is
Coding agents move fast and their logs do not always match what they really did. Sentient watches at the kernel level, using eBPF through Tetragon, and captures real file, process and network events as they happen. Because the record is made below the agent, the agent cannot edit it or switch it off.
Sentient then lines those events up with the agent’s session log, so you can see which prompt led to which action. Deterministic rules, not another model, flag risky operations: edits outside the repository, deleting files, sudo, or changing a shell profile, each ranked high, medium or low. You get a diff for every change, including files outside the repo, and a full timeline view.
A short command, sen status, shows the state of a session, and sen serve opens a local dashboard you can reach from your phone over SSH or Tailscale. Sentient also breaks long commands and pipelines down into what they actually touch, so a clever-looking one-liner cannot hide its effect.
Key features
- Kernel-level capture of file, process and network events via eBPF, tamper-proof against the agent.
- Events correlated with the session log, linking each prompt to its actions.
- Deterministic rules flag risky operations, ranked high, medium or low.
- Diffs for every change, including files outside the repository.
- Full timeline view of what the agent did.
- CLI
sen statusand a local dashboard viasen serve. - Breaks down long commands and pipelines into what they really touch.
Who it is for
Sentient fits developers who let coding agents work on real codebases and want proof of what changed, especially on shared machines or production-adjacent work. It also fits teams that review agent work and need an audit trail they can trust more than the agent’s own report.
Sentient runs on Linux only, and it is open source under the MIT licence.
Pricing
Sentient is free and open source (MIT). Download a binary from the GitHub releases or build from source, which needs Go 1.26. There is no paid plan listed on the official site.
Sources and verification: Information in this article is based on the official website (https://nosaka.ai/sentient/) and the launch announcement, checked on 9 November 2026. Prices may change; see the official website for current pricing.
Image: nosaka.ai/sentient (official screenshot)
