ai-safe-env

Protect .env secrets from AI coding tools. Zero-dependency Node.js alternative to enveil.

AI tools like Claude Code, Cursor, and Copilot can read your .env files. ai-safe-env ensures plaintext secrets never exist on disk — your .env contains only symbolic references, and real values live in an AES-256-GCM encrypted local store.

Why not enveil?

enveil is great but requires Rust/cargo. ai-safe-env is a single npm install with zero dependencies (uses Node.js built-in crypto). Drop-in replacement for dotenv.

Quick Start

npm install -g ai-safe-env

# In your project:
ai-safe-env init
ai-safe-env set database_url "postgres://user:pass@localhost/db"
ai-safe-env set stripe_key "sk_live_..."

Edit your .env:

DATABASE_URL=ase://database_url
STRIPE_KEY=ase://stripe_key
PORT=3000

Use in your app (replaces require('dotenv').config()):

require('ai-safe-env').config({ password: process.env.ASE_PASSWORD });
// process.env.DATABASE_URL is now the real value

Or run commands directly:

ai-safe-env run -- node server.js

Migrate existing .env

ai-safe-env migrate
# Encrypts all values, rewrites .env with ase:// references
# Original saved as .env.backup

How It Works

1. Secrets stored in ~/.ai-safe-env/<project-hash>.enc (AES-256-GCM, scrypt key derivation)
2. .env file contains only ase://key_name references — safe for AI tools to read
3. At runtime, references are resolved from the encrypted store and injected into process.env

Security

• AES-256-GCM encryption with scrypt key derivation (N=16384, r=8, p=1)
• Fresh random salt (16 bytes) and IV (12 bytes) on every write
• Authentication tag prevents tampering
• Store file is indistinguishable from random data without the password

License

MIT