[FEATURE]:Governance middleware hook for tool call authorization

[nagasatish007]

Feature Area

Agent capabilities

Is your feature request related to a an existing bug? Please link it here.

N/A

Describe the solution you'd like

Problem

CrewAI agents execute tools autonomously during crew runs. In production deployments, teams need governance controls:

• Which tools each agent is authorized to use (beyond just assigning tools)
• Cost tracking per agent across a crew run
• Audit trail for compliance (who called what, when, why)
• Ability to block specific tool calls based on runtime context (e.g., data sensitivity, time of day, budget remaining)

Currently, the only way to enforce this is by wrapping each tool's _run method individually, which doesn't compose well across crews.

Proposal

Add an optional governance hook that runs before each tool execution:

from crewai import Crew

def on_tool_call(agent, tool_name, tool_input, context):
    """Called before every tool execution. Raise to block."""
    if tool_name == "customer_export" and agent.role != "Admin":
        raise ToolBlockedError("customer_export requires Admin role")
    return True  # allow

crew = Crew(
    agents=[researcher, writer],
    on_tool_call=on_tool_call  # optional hook
)



This keeps governance decoupled from tool implementation — add/remove governance by changing the crew config, not every tool.

Working Example
I've built a working CrewAI + governance integration that demonstrates this pattern:

https://github.com/agentguard-ai/tealtiger/tree/main/examples/crewai-governance

It shows:

Policy-based tool authorization (allow/deny per tool per agent)
Per-agent cost tracking with CostTracker
A blocked customer_export tool call with clear error message
Works offline with deterministic demo mode (no API keys needed)
Uses TealTiger (open-source, Apache 2.0) for the governance engine, but the hook pattern would work with any policy engine.

Why this matters
OWASP's Agentic Top 10 identifies tool misuse (ASI-02) and access control failures (ASI-03) as top risks. A standard governance hook would let the CrewAI community build reusable authorization patterns without modifying individual tools.

Happy to submit a PR if a governance hook pattern is welcome.

### Describe alternatives you've considered

1. Wrapping each tool's _run method with governance logic — works but requires modifying every tool individually and doesn't compose across crews.

2. Subclassing Agent to override tool execution — tightly couples governance to a specific agent, breaks when switching agent types.

3. Post-hoc log analysis — only detects violations after they happen, doesn't prevent unauthorized actions.

A crew-level hook is preferred because it's non-invasive, composable, and works across all agents/tools without modification.


### Additional context

Working example with full source code: https://github.com/agentguard-ai/tealtiger/tree/main/examples/crewai-governance

This demonstrates:
- PolicyBuilder with allow/deny rules per tool
- governed_tool_call() wrapper pattern
- Per-agent cost tracking
- Blocked customer_export tool with clear error

OWASP Agentic Top 10 identifies tool misuse (ASI-02) and access control failures (ASI-03) as top risks for agentic applications.

Happy to submit a PR implementing this if the pattern is welcome.


### Willingness to Contribute

Yes, I'd be happy to submit a pull request

[Jairooh]

The governance pattern you're proposing is sound for CrewAI's architecture and addresses a genuine production need. As you scale this pattern, teams typically need real-time cost anomaly detection and risk scoring alongside runtime authorization. AgentShield already provides those aspects for CrewAI if you want to evaluate production-grade governance systems.