Hi everyone. I've been reading through the forum and trying to follow the discussions on egress controls, especially around proxies. I think I'm getting the basic idea, but I keep getting tripped up on one fundamental thing.

In the context of controlling agent traffic—like for a homelab or a small self-hosted setup—what exactly is the practical difference between a forward proxy and a reverse proxy? I see both mentioned a lot when talking about filtering traffic or setting up security.

I understand a forward proxy (like Squid) sits in front of clients and handles their outbound requests to the internet. It seems like that's for user or agent egress control. A reverse proxy (like nginx or Traefik) sits in front of servers and handles inbound requests from clients. That seems more for protecting services you're hosting.

But when we talk about "layer 7 egress controls," are we always only talking about the forward proxy side of things? Or can a reverse proxy play a role in controlling what traffic *leaves* your internal network? I think I'm confusing the "direction" of control.

If anyone could explain it in terms of these use cases, maybe with a simple example of where you'd place each, I'd be really grateful. Thanks so much for your patience with a beginner question.