Founder note
Automic Vault.
A local boundary for tools that no longer have a human at the keyboard.
I built Homebrew to make the command line easier to use. I built Automic Vault because AI agents changed who, or what, is using it.
Updated
- Official product
- automicvault.com
- Platform
- macOS
- Source
- GitHub
- License
- Free and Apache 2.0
Why I built it
The operator changed.
The command line used to assume a person was present. You installed a tool, read its output, and decided what to run next. Credentials in dotfiles and broad package-manager access were risky, but the human operator supplied context and friction.
An agent can read the same files, invoke the same tools, and reuse the same authority at machine speed. A prompt cannot protect a secret the process can already read.
Useful agents need tools. They do not need every credential those tools have ever been given.
Automic Vault moves supported secrets out of readable config files, checks the executable and signed launcher, and applies policy when a credential or sensitive command is actually requested. The boundary lives beneath the harness, so it is the same for an agent, a script, an editor, or Terminal.
The control point
Authority belongs at execution.
The same CLI can be trusted in Terminal, read-only inside an agent, and blocked everywhere else. Secret-revealing and mutating commands can still require a native approval gate.
This is intentionally local. Cloud vaults can remain the source of truth; Automic Vault controls the moment a process on your Mac tries to use that authority.
What you can inspect
Decisions and hazards stay visible.
Every approved or denied request leaves a local record. The app also monitors developer tools for credential exposure and mutable package paths, with the trigger and mitigation attached to each finding.
The product lives elsewhere
See the current product at automicvault.com.
The official site has the current feature details, documentation, download, package catalog, and security model. The Automic Vault GitHub repository has the source code, releases, license, and issue tracker.