# Why Nvidia gave OpenShell to the CNCF

DevFeed: [Why Nvidia gave OpenShell to the CNCF](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/why-nvidia-gave-openshell-to-the-cncf-129504.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://thenewstack.io/nvidia-donates-openshell-cncf/>)

Author: Frederic Lardinois

Published: 2026-11-11T19:13:54Z

Content type: news

Language: en

Sources: [The New Stack](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/the-new-stack.md>)

Topics: [OpenShell](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/openshell.md>), [Nvidia](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/nvidia.md>), [linux foundation](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/linux-foundation.md>), [Open Source](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/open-source.md>), [open-source-security](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/open-source-security.md>), [observability](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/observability.md>), [OpenTelemetry](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/opentelemetry.md>)

Tags: [a2a-protocol](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/a2a-protocol.md>), [agent-substrate](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agent-substrate.md>), [agentgateway](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agentgateway.md>), [agentic](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agentic.md>), [agentic-ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agentic-ai.md>), [agentic-ai-foundation](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agentic-ai-foundation.md>), [agents](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agents.md>), [ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai.md>), [ai-agents](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai-agents.md>), [ai-workloads](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai-workloads.md>), [alibaba](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/alibaba.md>), [canonical](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/canonical.md>), [cloud-native](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cloud-native.md>), [cloud-native-computing-foundation](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cloud-native-computing-foundation.md>), [cloud-native-ecosystem](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cloud-native-ecosystem.md>), [cncf](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/cncf.md>), [nvidia](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/nvidia.md>), [open-source](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/open-source.md>), [openshell](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/openshell.md>), [runtime](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/runtime.md>), [security](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/security.md>), [security-governance](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/security-governance.md>)

## AI overview

Nvidia donated OpenShell to the CNCF because it sees agent security as infrastructure for the Kubernetes and cloud native teams that operate production workloads. OpenShell runs agents in sandboxes and enforces policies on file, network, credential, and model endpoint access; it is adopting CNCF project Cedar as its policy language. The CNCF offers adjacent infrastructure projects and governance, while the Linux Foundation's Agentic AI Foundation focuses on agent protocols such as MCP and A2A, and the PyTorch Foundation on AI engineering tools. OpenShell is a CNCF Sandbox project, and the team is still considering an independent security committee for vulnerability disclosures. Nvidia hopes community contributions will build integrations and tooling for compute, credentials, inference, policy, security, privacy, and observability. The agent stack remains unsettled; the article describes expected experimentation over the next six to 12 months, including integration work with Agent Substrate.

## Source excerpt

Nvidia this week donated OpenShell, its open-source runtime for securing and governing AI agents, to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. The post Why Nvidia gave OpenShell to the CNCF appeared first on The New Stack.