Neuwerk

Configuration Schema

Reference for Neuwerk policy payloads accepted by the management API.

This page documents the policy configuration payloads accepted by the management API. The authoritative machine-readable source is the generated OpenAPI document at /openapi/neuwerk-v1.json, especially these components:

  • OpenApiPolicyUpsertRequest
  • PolicyConfig
  • SourceGroupConfig
  • SourcesConfig
  • RuleConfig
  • RuleMatchConfig
  • TlsMatchConfig

Scope

The current configuration schema is the payload accepted by the policy management API:

  • POST /api/v1/policies
  • PUT /api/v1/policies/:id
  • PUT /api/v1/policies/by-name/:name

Those endpoints accept a request envelope with three fields:

{
  "mode": "enforce",
  "name": "office-egress",
  "policy": {
    "default_policy": "deny",
    "source_groups": []
  }
}
  • mode controls whether the policy is disabled, audit, or enforce
  • name is optional metadata for lookup by stable name
  • policy is the actual Neuwerk policy object documented below

Top-Level PolicyConfig

PolicyConfig has two top-level fields:

{
  "default_policy": "deny",
  "source_groups": [
    {
      "id": "branch-office",
      "sources": {
        "cidrs": ["10.10.0.0/16"]
      },
      "rules": []
    }
  ]
}
  • default_policy Accepted as a policy string such as allow or deny Omit it to leave the default policy unset in the config object
  • source_groups Ordered list of source-group definitions Omit or leave empty to create a policy with no source groups

SourceGroupConfig

Each source group defines a source population and the rules applied to that population.

{
  "id": "branch-office",
  "priority": 100,
  "sources": {
    "cidrs": ["10.10.0.0/16"],
    "ips": ["10.10.1.20"]
  },
  "rules": [],
  "default_action": "deny"
}

Fields:

  • id Required stable identifier for the source group
  • priority Optional explicit evaluation priority If omitted, the control plane falls back to list order
  • sources Required source selector block
  • rules Optional list of rule definitions
  • default_action Optional fallback action within the source group

SourcesConfig

sources can be populated from static IP material, Kubernetes selectors, or both.

{
  "cidrs": ["10.10.0.0/16"],
  "ips": ["10.10.1.20"],
  "kubernetes": [
    {
      "integration": "cluster-a",
      "pod_selector": {
        "namespace": "payments",
        "match_labels": {
          "app": "api"
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Fields:

  • cidrs List of IPv4 CIDR strings
  • ips List of individual IPv4 strings
  • kubernetes List of Kubernetes-backed dynamic source selectors

Validation semantics:

  • The effective source set must not be empty.
  • Each Kubernetes source must set exactly one of pod_selector or node_selector.
  • integration is required and must refer to an existing Kubernetes integration when the policy is written through the HTTP API.

Kubernetes Source Selectors

Pod selector form:

{
  "integration": "cluster-a",
  "pod_selector": {
    "namespace": "payments",
    "match_labels": {
      "app": "api"
    }
  }
}

Node selector form:

{
  "integration": "cluster-a",
  "node_selector": {
    "match_labels": {
      "topology.kubernetes.io/zone": "eu-central-1a"
    }
  }
}

RuleConfig

Each rule combines metadata, an action, an optional mode override, and a match block.

{
  "id": "allow-dns",
  "priority": 10,
  "action": "allow",
  "mode": "enforce",
  "match": {
    "proto": "udp",
    "dst_ports": [53]
  }
}

Fields:

  • id Required rule identifier
  • priority Optional explicit evaluation priority
  • action Policy string such as allow or deny
  • mode Optional rule-local mode, either audit or enforce
  • match Required RuleMatchConfig

RuleMatchConfig

The match object combines L3, L4, ICMP, DNS, and TLS selectors.

{
  "dst_cidrs": ["203.0.113.0/24"],
  "dst_ips": ["203.0.113.20"],
  "dns_hostname": "*.example.com",
  "proto": "tcp",
  "src_ports": ["1024-65535"],
  "dst_ports": [443],
  "icmp_types": [],
  "icmp_codes": [],
  "tls": {
    "mode": "metadata",
    "sni": {
      "exact": ["api.example.com"]
    }
  }
}

Fields:

  • dst_cidrs Destination CIDR strings
  • dst_ips Destination IPv4 strings
  • dns_hostname Optional hostname matcher for DNS policy compilation
  • proto Protocol selector
  • src_ports Source port selectors
  • dst_ports Destination port selectors
  • icmp_types ICMP type selectors
  • icmp_codes ICMP code selectors
  • tls Optional TLS and HTTP matcher block

ProtoValue

proto accepts either a string or a numeric protocol value.

Examples:

"proto": "tcp"

"proto": 6

PortSpec

Port arrays accept either integers or strings.

Examples:

"dst_ports": [443, 8443]

"dst_ports": ["80-81", "10000-10100"]

Validation semantics:

  • TLS matchers require proto to resolve to tcp or any.
  • ICMP type and code filters require proto to resolve to icmp or any.
  • ICMP rules cannot use source or destination port filters.
  • If proto resolves to icmp and no ICMP types or codes are set, the compiler injects a default set of common ICMP controls.

TLS Matchers

TLS matching lives under match.tls.

{
  "mode": "intercept",
  "sni": {
    "exact": ["api.example.com"],
    "regex": ".*\\.example\\.com"
  },
  "server_dn": "CN=api.example.com,O=Example Corp",
  "server_san": ["api.example.com", "www.example.com"],
  "server_cn": "api.example.com",
  "fingerprint_sha256": [
    "0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef"
  ],
  "trust_anchors_pem": [
    "-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\n...\n-----END CERTIFICATE-----\n"
  ],
  "tls13_uninspectable": "deny",
  "http": {
    "request": {
      "methods": ["GET"],
      "path": {
        "prefix": ["/admin"]
      }
    }
  }
}

Fields:

  • mode metadata or intercept
  • sni TLS name matcher
  • server_dn Raw distinguished-name string match
  • server_san TLS name matcher for SAN values
  • server_cn TLS name matcher for CN values
  • fingerprint_sha256 List of certificate fingerprints
  • trust_anchors_pem PEM-encoded trust anchors
  • tls13_uninspectable allow or deny
  • http Optional HTTP request and response matcher block for intercepted traffic

TlsNameMatchConfig

TLS name matchers accept three encodings:

String form:

"sni": ".*\\.example\\.com"

List form:

"server_san": ["api.example.com", "www.example.com"]

Object form:

"server_cn": {
  "exact": ["api.example.com"],
  "regex": ".*\\.example\\.com"
}

HTTP Matchers Inside TLS

When tls.http is present, at least one of request or response must be set.

HttpRequestPolicyConfig

{
  "host": {
    "exact": ["api.example.com"]
  },
  "methods": ["GET", "POST"],
  "path": {
    "prefix": ["/v1/"]
  },
  "query": {
    "keys_present": ["tenant"],
    "key_values_exact": {
      "env": ["prod"]
    }
  },
  "headers": {
    "require_present": ["x-request-id"],
    "exact": {
      "x-env": ["prod"]
    }
  }
}

Fields:

  • host Exact and/or regex hostname matcher
  • methods HTTP methods, normalized to uppercase by the compiler
  • path Exact, prefix, and/or regex path matcher
  • query Presence, exact value, and regex value matching for query params
  • headers Presence, deny-presence, exact, and regex matching for headers

HttpResponsePolicyConfig

{
  "headers": {
    "deny_present": ["set-cookie"]
  }
}

This currently supports response-header matching only.

Field Encoding Notes

  • Most optional fields can be omitted entirely.
  • Arrays default to empty arrays when omitted.
  • Several matcher enums are intentionally untagged, so the same field may accept either a scalar, an array, or an object depending on context.
  • The OpenAPI artifact captures those unions explicitly and should be treated as the authoritative machine-readable form.

Compatibility Notes

This schema reflects the current Rust implementation, not a versioned long-term compatibility contract yet.

Today, the safest assumptions are:

  • new optional fields may be added
  • matcher validation may tighten as unsupported combinations are rejected earlier
  • write-time validation is authoritative over docs prose

If you need exact field shapes for tooling, consume /openapi/neuwerk-v1.json and pin to a tested Neuwerk version rather than relying only on this page.