Release notes

The highlights below are by version, newest first. See Installation to get kovra.

v0.12.1 — the Free license on Kaeus’ new license service · see what a signature signs

The Free license moves to Kaeus’ new license service. kovra 0.12.1 activates and renews there; kovra 0.12.0 used the previous one, which Kaeus is retiring. Nothing changes for your secrets: the license only decides whether kovra may be updated.
If you activated this Mac with kovra 0.12.0, activate it again. After the update, kovra license status, kovra doctor and the menu-bar app say that this Mac was activated on the previous service. Ask Kaeus for a new code through Support, saying that this Mac was activated with 0.12.0, and run kovra license activate with it; Kaeus releases the previous seat. See After updating from 0.12.0.
See what you sign. kovra sign <coord> --reason "<text>" <file> says what the signature is for, in one line kovra shows as the requester’s text, never as its own. Every signature that asks for approval now shows the signed file’s size, its kind and its SHA-256, to compare with shasum -a 256 <file>, and warns when a text hides characters. In kovra’s approval window, Review document… opens the document itself: a text with numbered lines (a Markdown or HTML page also rendered, with nothing able to run or load), or a PDF; nothing approves while it is open. The phone gets the reason and the SHA-256; the document stays on the Mac. The reason and the SHA-256 go to the audit log. See What a signature approval shows.
macOS only (Apple Silicon).

v0.12.0 — preflight · the Free license · approval rules by grade

Coming soon: approve from your iPhone. kovra Mobile, the free approval app for iPhone, is not available yet: it will be published on the App Store once it is stable. kovra 0.12.0 already includes the Mac’s side: pair the app with kovra phone pair (scan the QR, compare the 6-digit code, approve the pairing at the Mac). From then on each approval can also be answered on the phone with Face ID, and the first answer wins. Over SSH the phone is the place to approve; with no phone paired, those requests are refused. The master key, pairing and forgetting stay Mac-only. Kaeus’ relay never sees a value. See Approve from your iPhone.
Approval rules by grade. One table says what each operation asks, by the secret’s level and environment (see Sensitivity tiers). A medium secret delivered without an approval shows a macOS notification that names the secret, what received it and who asked, never the value. Inside an agent’s session, show, run and code are recorded as the agent’s, and kovra code of a prod TOTP from an agent’s session is refused, like kovra show.
kovra preflight and the MCP preflight tool tell you, and your agents, before running anything whether an operation will ask for approval, where and why. It is a dry run: no prompt, no phone, no values. See Preflight.
The Free license. Activate your Mac with a code from Kaeus: kovra license activate, then status, refresh and deactivate. It is a 30-day lease with 14 days of grace, renewed in the background and verified offline. An expired or missing license never keeps you from your secrets; it only blocks updating kovra. See The Free license.
Touch ID during video calls. kovra’s approval window now listens for Touch ID while the camera or microphone indicator is up.
Fixes from the release review: activating no longer fails if you take more than a minute to read the agreement; an activation code already used says so and how to release it; kovra doctor works outside a project and shows the license; refusals of show and code of a prod secret from an agent’s session are audited; approval dialogs show when an agent asked; the license renewal resumes after a successful activate or refresh.
macOS only (Apple Silicon). The approval app, once published, is for iPhone; Android comes later.

v0.11.2 — one Keychain item per vault folder · kovrad after an update

Each vault folder keeps its master key in a Keychain item of its own. ~/.vaults keeps the item master-key, so nothing changes for it. A vault in another folder (KOVRA_VAULT_DIR) gets its own item, and its kovra init --force or kovra key import --force never touches your real vault’s key. After updating, such a vault adopts the key it used until now, once, only if that key opens all of its records. See Configuration.
KOVRA_KEYCHAIN_BIOMETRIC is refused by the app from kovra.sh, with an error and before it touches the Keychain: unset it. Your approvals keep asking with Touch ID. See Troubleshooting.
kovrad after an update: its registration waits for launchd instead of failing. kovra daemon status, kovra setup and kovra doctor say whether kovrad is turned off in System Settings or its registration failed. kovra daemon install returns once kovrad is running. kovrad’s logs are readable only by you. See Troubleshooting.
Ctrl-C on kovra ui in the window closes the window and ends the command.
macOS only.

v0.11.1 — every approval in kovra’s window

Every approval on a Mac is read and approved in kovra’s review window: revealing a value, deleting, replacing, creating a prod secret, signing (the ssh-agent too), opening the dashboard and kovra confirm — not only a run. The window shows every field whole and scrolls, and names the project and each secret’s vault. See Runs with production secrets.
Rotate a secret by intake: request_secret and kovra intake fulfill on a secret that already exists replace its value after your approval, keeping its note and marks.
Project names follow the coordinate rule (ASCII letters, digits, ., _, -). If a project vault has another name, rename its folder under ~/.vaults/projects/.
Fixes: kovra ssh-add against the macOS agent, and approvals over SSH are refused instead of opening the window on the Mac’s screen.
kovra ui --docker is removed; kovra ui is unchanged.
macOS only.

v0.11.0 — Touch ID in the review window · usage notes

Touch ID inside the review window. A run that uses a high or prod secret is approved by touching the sensor drawn in kovra’s own review window — no code to compare and no second dialog. The sensor listens only while the window has the focus and nothing covers it; click the fingerprint to answer in the macOS dialog instead. See Runs with production secrets.
A quiet sound when kovra asks for your approval, once per request. Turn it off in the menu-bar menu with Sound for Approvals.
Usage notes and mint-only secrets. Agents read each secret’s usage note (up to 500 characters), and you can mark a master credential mint-only so kovra warns whenever it is used directly. See Usage notes and mint-only secrets.
References are checked when you save them: kovra add --reference, kovra edit --reference and the MCP refuse a pointer that kovra run would refuse by its form.
Fixes from the 0.10.0 review: bounds on the MCP inject_run (time and output), masking of overlapping values, a steadier kovrad on a busy Mac, and binaries with no symbols or build paths.
kovra exchange is removed. Use kovra package and kovra unpack to hand secrets to another machine.
macOS only. Windows stays on 0.9.1.

v0.10.0 — Approvals from macOS · credential gate

Approvals come from macOS itself. Every confirmation is Touch ID (or your login password in the macOS dialog); no other program can approve for you. A run that uses a high or prod secret first shows kovra’s review window — command, folder, which variable gets which secret, who asks and a 4-character code — and then Touch ID repeats the code.
Credential gate for Claude Code. kovra redacts credentials in tool output before they reach the agent, and delivers no value to a session whose project lacks kovra’s hooks. Run kovra setup once in each project where you use agents. See Credential gate.
kovra mcp. The MCP server now ships inside the kovra binary; the separate Python package is retired.
kovrad, kovra’s background service, starts at login with kovra.app.
Signed and notarized by Kaeus; kovra.app puts kovra on your PATH.
macOS only. Windows stays on 0.9.1 until its approvals are redesigned.

v0.9.1 — Maintenance

The menu-bar app and the Dashboard now show the running kovra version, so you can tell at a glance which build you’re on.
Polish to the agent-initiated intake flow and internal packaging/build fixes. No change to the CLI surface or security model.

v0.9.0 — Agent-initiated intake · Windows Beta

Agent-initiated intake. An agent can now request a secret it needs but you haven’t stored — naming only the coordinate, never a value — and you fulfil it out-of-band. The value never enters the model’s context. Fulfil from the new macOS menu-bar app, the Dashboard, or kovra intake at the terminal. See Agent-initiated intake.
Windows (Beta). kovra runs natively on Windows — Windows Hello, Credential Manager, owner-only ACLs, a governed ssh-agent over named pipes, and an MSI installer. macOS on Apple Silicon stays the reference platform; see Platform support.
Dashboard. A lock latch that reveals nothing until you re-authenticate, a --persistent mode that locks on idle instead of shutting down, and a native window on macOS. See the Dashboard.
kovra run --stdio for wrapping interactive processes and stdio MCP servers.

v0.8.0 — Public debut

kovra made its public debut. Download the CLI installer from kovra.sh; the MCP server was published separately (it will ship inside the installer). The documentation site (this site) launched here.

v0.7.0 — AWS provider

AWS Secrets Manager references (aws-sm://), the second cloud provider alongside Azure Key Vault. See Cloud references.

v0.6.0 — Dashboard v2 · attended confirmation · key backup

A productionized Dashboard, kovra confirm as a standalone attended confirmation primitive, and master-key backup/restore (kovra key export / import).

Earlier versions built the core: the local vault, sensitivity policy, process injection, the MCP server, native Touch ID, cloud references, and typed credentials (TOTP, keypairs, the governed ssh-agent).