gh-vault

A GitHub CLI with secure token storage using system vaults.

Note: This is a vibe coded project — built collaboratively with Claude Code. The irony isn't lost on us: an AI-assisted tool designed to give AI assistants less access to your tokens.

What is gh-vault?

A drop-in replacement for the official GitHub CLI (gh)
with enhanced security. Designed for:

• Seamless migration — Same command syntax, no script changes needed
• AI agent compatibility — AI assistants naturally use gh commands;
  gh-vault ensures they can't access your token
• Fine-grained token support — First-class support for scoped tokens

Why gh-vault?

The official GitHub CLI (gh) has several limitations that motivated this project:

1. Fine-Grained PATs are Second-Class Citizens

GitHub's fine-grained Personal Access Tokens let you scope access to specific repositories — a major security improvement. But the official gh CLI treats them as second-class citizens.

You can't use the normal auth flow (gh auth login) with fine-grained tokens — you're forced to export them as environment variables, which:

1. Still doesn't make all commands work — several gh pr commands fail regardless (#7978, #9166)
2. Exposes the token in your shell environment — any process can read it
3. Leaves it in shell history — if you set it inline (GH_TOKEN=xxx gh pr list)

2. Token Storage Has Known Vulnerabilities

• CVE-2024-53858: gh leaked tokens when cloning repos with submodules on non-GitHub hosts (fixed in v2.63.0)
• Silent fallback: When keyring is unavailable, gh falls back to plaintext ~/.config/gh/hosts.yaml without warning
• Supply chain risks: The Shai-Hulud 2.0 attack (Nov 2025) specifically executed gh auth token to steal GitHub credentials from compromised npm packages

3. AI Assistants Amplify These Risks

When AI tools like Claude Code access your terminal, they can:

• Read environment variables containing tokens
• Execute commands that output tokens (gh auth token)
• Access config files with stored credentials

Security Model

With gh: Your token has access to everything — repos, gists, orgs, SSH keys, GPG keys. If you share this with an AI tool, you're trusting it with all of that.

With gh-vault:

• Create a fine-grained PAT scoped to just the repos you want
• Store it separately from your main gh authentication
• The AI only gets access to PR operations on repos you choose
• Token never appears in environment variables, command history, or AI context

Installation

# Install globally from npm
npm install -g gh-vault

# Or run directly with npx
npx gh-vault pr list

Shell Alias (Optional)

To use gh as an alias for gh-vault:

# Add to ~/.zshrc or ~/.bashrc
alias gh='gh-vault'

Quick Start

1. Create a Scoped Token

Go to GitHub Settings → Fine-grained PATs:

• Set expiration (90 days recommended)
• Select only the repositories you want to expose
• Permissions: Pull requests (Read/Write), Contents (Read)

2. Store the Token

gh auth login
# Paste your token when prompted — it's stored in your system vault

For CI/CD or non-interactive environments:

echo "$GITHUB_PAT" | gh-vault auth login --dangerously-skip-vault

3. Use the CLI

gh pr list
gh pr view 123
gh pr create --title "Fix bug" --body "Description"

CLI Commands

gh-vault mirrors the official gh CLI syntax.

Pull Requests

# List PRs
gh pr list                     # Open PRs in current repo
gh pr list --state closed      # Closed PRs
gh pr list --author octocat    # Filter by author
gh pr list --json number,title # JSON output

# View PRs
gh pr view 123                 # View PR #123
gh pr view --comments          # Include comments
gh pr view --web               # Open in browser

# Create PRs
gh pr create -t "Title" -b "Body"
gh pr create --draft           # Create as draft
gh pr create -r reviewer       # Request reviewer

# Manage PRs
gh pr edit 123 --add-label bug
gh pr merge 123 --squash
gh pr close 123
gh pr checkout 123

# View changes
gh pr diff 123
gh pr diff --patch             # Full diff
gh pr checks 123               # CI status

Other Commands

# Repository operations
gh repo list
gh repo view owner/repo
gh repo clone owner/repo

# Workflow runs
gh run list
gh run view <run-id>

# Workflows
gh workflow list
gh workflow run <workflow>

# Search
gh search repos "topic:cli"
gh search prs "is:open author:me"

See gh CLI manual for full command reference.

Comparison with official gh

What gh-vault does differently

• Secure vault storage: Token encrypted at rest in your OS vault (Keychain, Credential Manager, Secret Service)
• Fine-grained PAT first: Native support for scoped tokens
• Token isolation: Use different tokens for different tools

Supported Commands

For operations not yet supported, continue using gh. gh-vault is designed to complement it.

Intentionally Omitted: auth token

gh-vault will never implement gh auth token or any command that outputs the token to stdout.

The official gh auth token command prints your token in plaintext — convenient for scripting, but dangerous when AI assistants or other tools can capture command output. This directly contradicts gh-vault's security-first design.

Real-World Attack: Shai-Hulud 2.0 (November 2025)

The largest npm supply chain attack compromised 796 packages and over 27,000 repositories. The malware specifically executed gh auth token to steal GitHub credentials:

"The malicious code executed gh auth token as a child process to extract GitHub credentials, which were then exfiltrated to attacker-controlled servers."

gh-vault prevents this attack vector by never outputting tokens to stdout.

The entire point of gh-vault is to keep your token in the system vault and nowhere else:

• No token in environment variables
• No token in command output
• No token in shell history
• No token in AI context windows

If you need to extract a token for another tool, use your system's credential manager directly (Keychain Access on macOS, Credential Manager on Windows, or Secret Service tools on Linux) — but understand you're bypassing gh-vault's security model.

Requirements

• macOS: Keychain
• Linux: Secret Service (GNOME Keyring, KWallet)
• Windows: Credential Manager
• Node.js 20+

For development:

• pnpm (enforced via hooks)

Contributing

See ARCHITECTURE.md for technical details and development setup.

License

MIT