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João André Gomes Marques
João André Gomes Marques

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5 open source tools for AI agent governance in 2026

AI agents are moving into production faster than governance tooling can keep up. Here are the 5 open source tools worth knowing about.

1. Microsoft Agent Governance Toolkit

The 800-pound gorilla. Policy-as-code with Cedar, multi-language SDKs (Python, TypeScript, .NET, Rust, Go), 9,500+ tests. No cryptographic signing but the most mature policy engine.

github.com/microsoft/agent-governance-toolkit

2. asqav

Quantum-safe audit trails. Every agent action gets an ML-DSA-65 signature chained to the previous one. Works with LangChain, CrewAI, OpenAI Agents, Haystack, LiteLLM. The only tool with post-quantum signatures.

github.com/jagmarques/asqav-sdk

3. Guardrails AI

6.6K stars. Output validation and structural guarantees for LLM responses. Guardrails Hub has community validators. Different focus (output quality vs audit trails) but complementary.

github.com/guardrails-ai/guardrails

4. NeMo Guardrails

NVIDIA. Programmable conversation rails using Colang DSL. Topic control, safety rails, jailbreak prevention. Great for chatbot safety, less focused on agent audit trails.

github.com/NVIDIA/NeMo-Guardrails

5. AgentMint

Ed25519 signed receipts with zero dependencies. The init command auto-discovers tool calls in your codebase. Best developer experience for quick setup. No SaaS, fully local.

github.com/aniketh-maddipati/agentmint-python

When to use what

Regulated industry needing long-term proof: asqav (quantum-safe signatures hold up for 10+ years)

Enterprise policy enforcement: Microsoft AGT (most mature, multi-language)

LLM output quality: Guardrails AI

Conversation safety: NeMo Guardrails

Quick local receipts: AgentMint

Full comparison table: github.com/jagmarques/ai-agent-governance-landscape

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