Air-gapped
Also called: airgap, offline install, no network
An air-gapped system has no network connection at all, so software must arrive pre-installed and must never expect to reach the internet.
Air-gapped means physically or logically disconnected from any outside network. It is standard where a breach would be unacceptable: classified environments, industrial control, medical devices, and anything holding data that must not leave a room.
For software this is a hard constraint, not a setting. Nothing may resolve a hostname, fetch a dependency, check for updates, or phone home. Anything needed at runtime must already be on disk — including model weights, which is the part most AI stacks fail.
A credible air-gapped tier means every runtime, native module, model file and signature database is baked into the image, with egress denied at the firewall rather than merely unused. The test is simple: boot it with the network cable out and see whether it works.