Security Considerations

As fundamental abilities for a coding agent, Serena contains tools for executing shell commands and modifying files. Therefore, if the respective tool calls are not monitored or restricted (and execution takes place in a sensitive environment), there is a risk of unintended consequences.

Therefore, to reduce the risk of unintended consequences when using Serena, it is recommended to

• back up your work regularly (e.g. use a version control system like Git),
• monitor tool executions carefully (e.g. via your MCP client, provided that it supports it),
• consider enabling read-only mode for your project (set read_only: True in project.yml) if you only want to analyze code without modifying it,
• restrict the set of allowed tools via the configuration,
• use a sandboxed environment for running Serena (e.g. by using Docker).