Use Avibe Vault
When a task needs API keys, access tokens, passwords, wallet private keys, or other sensitive credentials, prefer Avibe Vault: agents reference secrets by name, tag, or skill tag, and users do not need to paste plaintext into chat.
Core concepts:
- Static secret: a regular secret value, such as an API key, token, database password, or deployment credential. Use it with
vibe vault run for environment injection or vibe vault fetch for authenticated HTTP egress.
- A static secret can contain up to 32 named fields.
NAME selects its default field (existing secrets call it value); NAME.field selects that field, including an explicit default label such as GITHUB_LOGIN.password. Field names match ^[a-z][a-z0-9_]{0,63}$. The default label may be renamed; extra labels and the choice of default cannot change after creation.
- Keypair secret: a signing key for digests or transactions, such as a wallet key or deployment signer. It cannot be exported as an environment variable and cannot be used with
run / fetch; use vibe vault sign.
- Standard: for lower-risk routine automation. Agents can usually use it without interrupting the user unless it is configured to ask first.
- Protected: for high-risk secrets, such as production databases or wallet/funds keys. Because protected secrets are end-to-end encrypted, use requires browser approval and passkey unlock.
Rules:
- Refer to secrets only by secret name, record ref (
NAME.field), tag, or skill tag.
- Static secrets can be used with
run / fetch; keypair secrets can only be used with vibe vault sign. Keypairs do not accept field refs.
- Authorization is per secret: approving a protected secret unlocks all its fields for the grant's lifetime. The CLI cannot create, replace, or delete fields; the user does that in the browser.
--env NAME.field delivers one value to NAME_FIELD (only the field is uppercased); --env LOCAL=NAME.field chooses the variable. --tag and --skill deliver every field of each selected secret, using NAME for the default and NAME_FIELD for extras. Conflicting variable mappings fail before delivery.
list and find return value-free default_field and fields metadata. If a ref fails with field_not_found, use the listed field names rather than guessing.
export remains deprecated and has no delivery. Prefer run; advanced inject writes a restricted-permission file, so use it only for tools that require file-based configuration.
- With
vibe vault run, the child process receives static secrets as environment variables, so never run commands that may print env vars, debug config, or secret-bearing errors.
- When protected
run / fetch needs approval, Avibe automatically asks the user to decrypt and authorize access, and the command waits for that approval (540 seconds by default; --approval-wait SECONDS or --no-approval-wait to change it). If the command then succeeds, it ran once: do not run it again. If it returns approval_required, approval_wait_timeout, or approval_handed_off, or your call to it is stopped before it gets the approval, the command did not run; Avibe resumes this session once the request is decided, and after an approval you run the same run / fetch command once.
- When protected
sign needs approval, Avibe creates a browser signing request and returns immediately. Do not rerun sign; when Avibe resumes this session, follow the callback instruction to read the completed request result and continue with the returned signature.
Common commands:
Request that the user add a missing static secret. spec-json may contain only non-secret prefill metadata; the actual secret value is entered by the user in the browser:
vibe vault request OPENAI_API_KEY --reason "Need OpenAI API access" --spec-json '{"kind":"static","protection":"protected","description":"OpenAI API key","tags":["openai","prod","skill:model-work"],"policy":{"allowed_hosts":["api.openai.com"],"auth":{"type":"bearer"}}}'
Request a multi-field login item with a password default. These are field names only, never values:
vibe vault request GITHUB_LOGIN --reason "Log in to GitHub" --spec-json '{"protection":"protected","fields":["username","password","totp"],"default_field":"password"}'
A totp field is ordinary stored secret material in this version, not a generated one-time code.
For a missing keypair/signing key, ask the user to create a keypair secret in the Vault UI; do not request or store private-key material as a static secret.
On Avibe Web chat, a lighter manual prompt can mention the missing secret as a clickable placeholder in your reply, for example $<OPENAI_API_KEY>. The user can click it and fill the secret from Web chat. This has no reason or structured prefill metadata; use vibe vault request when those are needed.
List or find existing Vault entries:
vibe vault list
vibe vault list --tag prod
vibe vault find --kind static --protection protected
vibe vault find openai --tag prod
vibe vault tags
Run a command with selected static secrets injected as environment variables:
vibe vault run --env OPENAI_API_KEY,GITHUB_TOKEN -- python script.py
vibe vault run --env GITHUB_LOGIN.username -- python script.py
vibe vault run --env PASSWORD=GITHUB_LOGIN.password -- python script.py
vibe vault run --tag deploy -- ./deploy.sh
vibe vault run --skill github-release -- ./release.sh
Make an authenticated HTTP request. The credential is attached only at egress, and the agent never sees the secret:
vibe vault fetch --auth GITHUB_API.token --url https://api.github.com/user
The secret's allowed hosts and auth scheme apply to every field; this attaches one field, not a username/password pair.
For tools that require a file, inject uses the same selectors and explicit output keys:
vibe vault inject --env USERNAME=GITHUB_LOGIN.username --env PASSWORD=GITHUB_LOGIN.password --out login.env --format dotenv
vibe vault inject --tag deploy --out deploy.json --format json
Request approval before a protected run with an existing static secret:
vibe vault access GITHUB_LOGIN.password --skill deploy --command "Log in to GitHub" --egress "github.com"
For protected fetch, run vibe vault fetch; it creates the correct fetch approval request when needed.
Sign a 32-byte digest with a keypair secret. Standard keys may return the signature directly; protected keys create a browser approval request:
vibe vault sign WALLET_KEY --digest 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 --scheme ecdsa-secp256k1-recoverable --command "sign deployment transaction"
Ask the user to delete a Vault secret. Every agent-initiated delete needs one-click user approval, including standard, protected, static, and keypair secrets:
vibe vault rm OLD_TOKEN --reason "Rotated credential"
This returns a pending request ID without deleting anything. With the normal callback, Avibe resumes this Session after the user decides; do not rerun rm. With --no-callback, or when the request has no resolvable Session, check explicitly with vibe vault await <request_id>; do not rerun rm. If a repeated rm reuses a pending request created by another Session, use the returned request ID with vibe vault await <request_id> rather than expecting a callback for the current Session.
vibe vault rm always requests whole-secret deletion. It rejects NAME.field; remove a single field from the Vaults page instead.
For more details, run vibe vault --help.