Network Allowlist
If your secure web gateway will not load this site or will not let Bolt install, this page has everything your network team needs: the specific hostnames, why each one is contacted, and the per-vendor steps to allow them. Written to be forwarded to a security admin without edits.
The short version
If you only read one section, allow these outbound over HTTPS and Bolt will install and stay current:
sparcle.app
api.github.com
github.com
release-assets.githubusercontent.com
objects.githubusercontent.comEverything else on this page is detail: what each host is for, what Bolt contacts once it is running, and how to enter these into your specific gateway.
Nothing here is a check-in. There is no activation call, no licence phone-home, and no telemetry endpoint: the licence is a signed token the deployment verifies offline against a key compiled into the binary. The one thing Bolt starts on its own is an update check, and it asks two hosts for the same manifest, GitHub first and sparcle.app second. That second one is ours, so we list it rather than let you find it in a proxy log.
Install time
Required to download and install Bolt. Verified against the shipping installer and a live release-asset redirect.
| Hostname | Port | Why it is contacted |
|---|---|---|
sparcle.app | 443 / TCP | The download page, the install scripts, and published SHA-256 checksums. |
api.github.com | 443 / TCP | Resolves which release version is current. One GET, no authentication. |
github.com | 443 / TCP | Release download URLs. Issues a redirect to the asset host below. |
release-assets.githubusercontent.com | 443 / TCP | Where the installer bytes actually come from. GitHub redirects here, so allowing github.com alone is not sufficient. |
objects.githubusercontent.com | 443 / TCP | Legacy GitHub release-asset host. Still serves some older releases; allow it if you pin an older version. |
Runtime, required
Three hosts, all for updates and nothing else. Block them and Bolt keeps working.
| Hostname | Purpose | Detail |
|---|---|---|
github.com | Update check | The desktop updater fetches a small JSON manifest from our GitHub release channel. Block this and Bolt keeps working; it simply stops offering updates. |
sparcle.app | Update check, second endpoint | The updater is configured with two endpoints and tries them in order, so if the GitHub manifest cannot be fetched it asks sparcle.app for the same file. It carries no account, no identifier and no telemetry: it is the same manifest from a second host. Allow it, or block both and Bolt stops offering updates. |
release-assets.githubusercontent.com | Update download | The update package itself, if a user accepts an update. GitHub redirects here for the bytes. |
Runtime, optional
None of these are reached by default. Each corresponds to a capability a user or admin explicitly enables, and most of them are your own systems rather than ours.
| Destination | Triggered by | Detail |
|---|---|---|
huggingface.co, and the CDN hosts it redirects to (us.aws.cdn.hf.co, cdn-lfs.huggingface.co) | On-device model download, one time per model | Only if a user enables local visual search, local embeddings, or local speech-to-text. Bolt requests huggingface.co at a pinned commit; the CDN hostnames are where Hugging Face redirects for the bytes, which is why they are listed here even though Bolt never names them. Each model is pulled once and then runs entirely on-device. If your policy is to preload models rather than let endpoints fetch them, tell us and we will document the offline path. |
Your LLM endpoint | Model inference | Bolt ships no LLM and no credentials for one, so nothing reaches a model provider until you configure a provider and a key. This is whatever you configure: an on-prem server, an in-tenant cloud model, or a vendor API. If you point Bolt at an internal endpoint, nothing leaves your network for inference at all. |
accounts.google.com, www.googleapis.com, gmail.googleapis.com, calendar.google.com | Google Workspace | Only for accounts a user explicitly connects. OAuth is user-consented and revocable. |
login.microsoftonline.com, graph.microsoft.com, outlook.office.com | Microsoft 365 | Only for accounts a user explicitly connects. |
Your MCP server hostnames | Tool and data connectors | Only the MCP servers you configure. Bolt enables none by default. |
Per-vendor steps
The mechanism differs by vendor but the shape does not: a customer-defined allow entry, evaluated ahead of category-based block rules.
Third-party categorization
Checked directly at each vendor's public lookup tool on the date shown. We publish the unflattering rows too, because your gateway is going to tell you anyway.
| Vendor | Category | Risk or trust | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Palo Alto Networks (PAN-DB) | Computer-and-Internet-Info | Low-Risk | 23 Jul 2026 |
| Cisco Talos | No established content category | Not on the Talos block list | 23 Jul 2026 |
| Trellix and McAfee | Uncategorized | Unverified | 23 Jul 2026 |
If your gateway says uncategorized
An allow list fixes your organization. Categorization fixes it for everyone, and a submission from a paying customer carries considerably more weight with a vendor than one from the site owner. If you are willing, the submission portals are:
The accurate categories for this domain are Business, Computers and Internet, Software Updates, or Freeware and Shareware. Palo Alto independently arrived at Computer-and-Internet-Info, which is the same answer. sparcle.app is a vendor marketing and download site: it hosts no model, accepts no prompts, and returns no generated output, so the generative-AI categories do not apply to it under the definitions those vendors publish.
Honest framing
Verify before you trust
Every release publishes SHA-256 checksums. To verify a download before running it:
# macOS and Linux
shasum -a 256 <the downloaded file>
# Windows PowerShell
Get-FileHash -Algorithm SHA256 <the downloaded file>
Compare the result against the checksum published with the release. If your policy is to
review installer scripts before execution, both are plain text and readable in a browser at
/install.sh and
/install.ps1. If your policy prohibits piped shell
installers outright, download the platform installer directly from the
download page and skip the script entirely.
We will write the exact steps for your gateway, or answer a security questionnaire, usually within one business day.