@shield-agent/kya

Audit trail & traceability for AI agents. Every tool call your coding agents make — gated (Allow / Review / Deny), recorded on a live local dashboard, and certifiable against the Agent Trust Baseline. One command. Free forever under MIT.

npm i -g @shield-agent/kya@latest && kya start

Requires Node.js 24+. Restart Cursor / Claude Code / Codex once so MCP loads. Hosted desk: shield-agent.com.

CLI and local MCP gate for Shield’s Know Your Agent path.

If an agent can change a real system, it has to ask Shield first. You register the agent, wrap the tool, and get Allow, Review, or Deny. Review waits for a person. This package does not scan your network. Agents that never call evaluate stay invisible on purpose.

Walkthrough: how you use it.

npx @shield-agent/kya@latest --help

Requires Node.js 24+ (engines.node: >=24). On an older Node the CLI offers to install 24 for you (via volta / fnm / nvm / brew), reinstall itself, and finish the command — declining just prints a warning and continues.

It works with any host that speaks MCP or OpenAPI. Vertical packs are optional. Shield is the only policy decision point: this gate never auto-approves an irreversible side effect.

If KYA_API_KEY is empty against an authenticated plane, network commands exit non-zero. eval-tool, wrap, and invoke exit 0 on ALLOW, 4 on REQUIRE_APPROVE, and 1 on DENY or unknown, so a line like eval-tool && write cannot skip the gate.

--offline runs sample evaluate without a paid cloud (useful for DENY and REQUIRE_APPROVE demos). Creating an agent is itself a tool: offline, kya.agent.register comes back REQUIRE_APPROVE. Allow, break-glass, and approve mint modes live on the control plane.

One liner

npm i -g @shield-agent/kya@latest && kya start

Run it in your project directory. (From a clone of this repo, ./scripts/install-local.sh replaces the npm install.)

That inits .kya/, wires local MCP (.mcp.json, mcp.json, .cursor/mcp.json → kya serve-mcp --stdio), also wires user-level configs for every installed host it detects (~/.claude.json, ~/.kimi-code/, ~/.grok/, ~/.cursor/, …), and opens the live activity report. The report runs in the background — you get your terminal back; kya stop stops it, kya receipt --open reopens it. Cursor, Kiro, Qwen, Amp, Droid, Cline, and Grok pick the server up live with no restart (Kimi: just a new session); Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Gemini, Copilot CLI, and Kilo CLI load it on next launch — claude --resume keeps your conversation.

kya start --no-open   # wire only
kya start --force     # rewrite MCP blocks
# Receipt change previews (clipped + redacted): on by default for writes
# KYA_DIFF_PREVIEW=0 to disable

One command per host

kya start covers Claude Code, Cursor, and any host that reads .mcp.json — and auto-wires the user-level config of every installed host it detects. For the rest, kya connect writes the host's own config dialect directly:

kya connect claude              # ~/.claude.json (merges mcpServers only)
kya connect grok                # ~/.grok/config.toml (appends [mcp_servers.shield-kya])
kya connect opencode            # ~/.config/opencode/opencode.json
kya connect qwen                # ~/.qwen/settings.json
kya connect amp                 # ~/.config/amp/settings.json
kya connect qwen --project      # project scope instead of global
kya connect kiro --force        # overwrite an existing shield-kya entry

Connect merges — it never rewrites a host config it can't parse, and it keeps your other servers and keys. Supported hosts: claude, grok, opencode, kilo, kiro, qwen, kimi, mastracode, amp, copilot, cursor. Each wires serve-mcp --stdio with KYA_OFFLINE=1 so the gate starts keyless; set KYA_API_KEY in the host env when you point at an authenticated plane.

Hosts without a connect target still work: kya wrap --offline -- <agent command> puts the same evaluate gate in front of any CLI. Per-host recipes with verify steps and troubleshooting live in docs/hosts/.

Hook interception

kya start also wires a PreToolUse hook into every installed hook-capable host it detects: Claude Code (~/.claude/settings.json, merge-only), Grok (~/.grok/hooks/shield-kya.json, kya-managed file), and Kimi Code (~/.kimi-code/config.toml, [[hooks]] append). Every tool call the agent makes then passes through kya hook first: evaluated locally (offline, sub-second, no network) and recorded on the global trail.

Decision mapping: a local never-list DENY blocks the tool call (exit 2 plus hookSpecificOutput deny JSON with permissionDecision: "deny"). ALLOW and REQUIRE_APPROVE are recorded on the trail as advisory and the call proceeds. Manual wiring can pass --strict on the hook command to also block REQUIRE_APPROVE.

Hooks are fail-open: any hook error or timeout allows the call. They are alerts plus local never-list enforcement, not the sole barrier — plane enforcement remains the MCP kya.policy_evaluate path. Hooks take effect in new sessions; all three hosts load hooks at session start.

kya connect claude --hooks   # wire the PreToolUse hook by hand
kya connect grok --hooks
kya connect kimi --hooks

Gate (local MCP gateway)

kya gate puts one loopback-only listener (127.0.0.1, default port 3930) in front of any MCP server you already use. Your host talks to the gateway; the gateway fans out to the real servers. Per-tool policy is generated from the top-20 server taxonomy — destructive names (drop/truncate/purge/transfer) and each server's ADMIN-tier tools are denied outright (and filtered from tools/list), everything else runs in observe mode: allowed, and audited. Every call is traced into the local trail and the live report, and can be forwarded as OTLP to the hosted intake.

Zero-touch: kya start already does this for you. It scans your detected host configs for third-party MCP servers, imports them into .kya/gateways.json (recorded with an importedFrom provenance field), installs the gateway binary, starts the listener, and rewrites each source host so the imported servers route through the gateway — the original host config is preserved under .kya/backups/ before anything is removed. Nothing found → nothing downloaded, no listener. Opt out with kya start --no-gate or KYA_GATE=off. If the binary download fails (offline, no network), kya start warns once and continues without the gateway — host configs stay untouched. The manual path below is still there when you want full control:

kya gate init     # scaffold .kya/gateways.json with ready-to-move recipes
# edit gateways.json: move a recipe into "servers", fill its placeholders
kya gate setup    # download the pinned gateway binary into .kya/bin
kya gate run      # generate the gateway config, start the listener detached
kya connect claude --gate   # point the host at the gateway (server key shield-kya-gate)
kya gate doctor   # binary, config, listener health, loopback-only posture

kya gate stop stops the supervisor and the binary with it. Honest notes: kya gate setup (and kya start's auto-bootstrap, only when it found servers to govern) downloads the pinned gateway binary from our releases — nothing else fetches anything; run never downloads. Observe mode means allowed calls are recorded, not blocked — the deny set above is the only hard stop, and plane enforcement stays with kya.policy_evaluate. kya connect <host> --gate covers the same hosts as plain connect — grok gets a [mcp_servers.shield-kya-gate] url table in its config.toml (Grok supports remote MCP servers over HTTP). Per-server tiers and recipes: docs/mcp-servers.md.

Longer path (optional)

# Offline sample evaluate
kya eval-tool --offline --tool-id org.sample.never.event --irreversible
kya wrap --offline --tool-id Write --irreversible --args '{"path":"src/x.ts","content":"hi"}'
kya receipt --open
# Org Hold: KYA_HOLD=1 kya wrap …
kya dash --once --offline

Install hub: https://shield-agent.com/install

Activity trail (global)

One trail for all projects: ~/.kya/trail.jsonl (KYA_HOME overrides ~). kya receipt --open from any directory shows activity from every project. Each event carries its project folder name — the report adds a Projects rollup once two or more projects appear, and shows the project on each feed entry. Older per-project <project>/.kya/trail.jsonl files are still read and merged; no migration. The trail is capped at 1 MB (tail-read: oldest events drop away), shared across all projects.

The report itself is a dashboard: a hero row on top (live Certify result, verdict mix, activity sparkline, showback) with tabbed sections below — Overview (analytics, sessions, reasons), Certify (the full live requirement table — every requirement grouped by domain with status, evidence, and attestation), Activity (the filterable event feed), System (wired hosts, sandboxes, ORR). Everything is one standalone offline HTML page; the live daemon from kya start re-renders it on every event.

Dual plane

 host=ide (authoring)          host=runtime (production)
        │                              │
        └────────── same agent ────────┘
                    identity
                    policy evaluate  → ALLOW | DENY | REQUIRE_APPROVE
                    approval + trail

Tag sessions with KYA_HOST=ide or KYA_HOST=runtime. Same policy path either way.

Environment

Gate mode can also be pinned in the project's .kya/config.json: {"gateMode": "hold"} or {"gateMode": "offline"} (exact values only — anything else is ignored). The gate itself (wrap / hook / eval) honors it with the precedence flags > env > config > observe, and kya certify reports through the same resolver, so a certify pass on gate mode always reflects how the gate actually runs.

MCP tools

MCP Registry entry: server.json plus package mcpName io.github.The-Pixel-Boys/shield-kya.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "shield-kya": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["--no-install", "@shield-agent/kya@0.18.0", "serve-mcp", "--stdio"],
      "env": {
        "KYA_BASE_URL": "http://127.0.0.1:8090",
        "KYA_API_KEY": "${KYA_API_KEY}",
        "KYA_HOST": "ide"
      }
    }
  }
}

Wrap and decide

npx @shield-agent/kya wrap --offline --tool-id org.sample.data.write --irreversible
npx @shield-agent/kya approve --id <approval-id>
npx @shield-agent/kya reject --id <approval-id>

wrap evaluates and may open a pending ticket. It never executes the side effect. invoke asks the live plane to authorize after Allow or APPROVED. It does not run the write on this machine. The TUI (dash) can a/x decide only after y confirm with a JWT (sk_* refused).

In-process SDK shims

Agents built on LangGraph.js, the Vercel AI SDK, Mastra, OpenAI Agents TS, or the Claude Agent SDK can route tool calls through the same evaluate path without a gateway:

import { governed, governLangGraphTool, KyaDeniedError } from "@shield-agent/kya/sdk";

const run = governed({ toolId: "write_file", server: "filesystem", fn: myWrite });
await run({ path: "out.txt", content: "hi" }); // throws KyaDeniedError on DENY

Offline evaluate by default (no network, no hosted plane); an explicit config honors the live plane. governA2aSend gates in-process agent-to-agent sends. Python frameworks (LangGraph, CrewAI, Pydantic AI, ADK, AutoGen, smolagents) use the shield-kya shim (sdks/kya-python/), which delegates to the local kya CLI. Support matrix and recipes: docs/sdk-integrations.md; runnable scripts: examples/sdk/.

Claude connector

Desktop / Claude Code (local stdio):

# Prefer a preinstalled package (no registry auto-install):
npx --no-install @shield-agent/kya@0.18.0 serve-mcp --stdio
# Or after npm i -g / local install:
kya serve-mcp --stdio

Copy claude/claude_desktop_config.example.json into Claude Desktop MCP settings, or use .mcp.json for Claude Code. Pack a Desktop extension with npx @anthropic-ai/mcpb pack (see manifest.json). That pack runs the packed dist/cli.js, not npx -y.

Claude.ai / Cowork (hosted): add a custom connector at https://shield-agent.com/mcp with request header Authorization: Bearer <KYA_API_KEY> (or X-API-Key). It is not Directory-listed yet (API-key auth, no OAuth DCR).

OpenAI (Codex / Responses)

Codex CLI / IDE: copy openai/codex.config.example.toml into ~/.codex/config.toml. Local stdio uses npx --no-install @shield-agent/kya@0.18.0 serve-mcp --stdio. Hosted Codex uses url = "https://shield-agent.com/mcp" with bearer_token_env_var = "KYA_API_KEY".

Responses API: see openai/responses-mcp.example.json (server_url + Authorization: Bearer <KYA_API_KEY>).

ChatGPT Apps (chatgpt.com): deferred. Developer Mode wants OAuth. Use Codex until then.

Gemini CLI

Merge gemini/settings.example.json (stdio) or gemini/settings.hosted.example.json (httpUrl + Bearer) into ~/.gemini/settings.json or .gemini/settings.json. Do not enable both at once.

Grok

Grok CLI (local): kya connect grok appends a [mcp_servers.shield-kya] table to ~/.grok/config.toml (serve-mcp --stdio, keyless offline sample evaluate). In a running session, press r in /mcps to refresh.

grok.com (hosted): custom connector at https://shield-agent.com/mcp (see grok/README.md). Grok rejects localhost. Prefer a Bearer machine key when the UI offers a request header.

More hosts

Each ships a copy-paste example in its own directory; kya connect <host> writes the same thing for the starred ones. Full recipes (verify, uninstall, troubleshooting): docs/hosts/.

Cursor plugin

The package includes .cursor-plugin/plugin.json, mcp.json, and a wrap skill. Public listing repo: https://github.com/The-Pixel-Boys/shield-kya

ORR (reporting only)

npx @shield-agent/kya orr run --path . --out ./orr-report --skip-optional-producers
npx @shield-agent/kya orr run --path . --out ./orr-report --scorecard ./scorecard.json --producer openssf.scorecard
npx @shield-agent/kya orr run --path . --out ./orr-report --producer harness.agentshield --agentshield-json ./agentshield-report.json

ORR is a reporting board. Scanners, --scorecard, and harness.agentshield are evidence. They never ALLOW a high-stakes side effect, so they are not a second policy gate. AgentShield is optional and read-only: no --fix, no MiniClaw, no runtime hook. This package does not depend on ecc-agentshield. If you pass --producer harness.agentshield and have neither --agentshield-json nor an agentshield binary, ORR records a coverage gap and still exits 0. Explicit --producer always attempts; --skip-optional-producers only skips producers you did not ask for.

Certify (continuous agent assurance)

kya certify evaluates the open Agent Trust Baseline catalog (catalog/agent-trust-baseline-v0.json — 30 requirements across Data & Privacy, Security, Safety, Reliability, Accountability, Society) against local evidence: the global trail, ORR output, wired hosts, sandbox inventory, receipts, showback, and your recorded attestations. It writes a gap report to .kya/certify/ (JSON + Markdown + HTML). The gap list is your work plan. The receipt report shows the same state live: a Certify panel recomputed on every render (so kya start's live report updates as events stream in), plus a dedicated Certify tab with the full live requirement table — run kya certify for the full gap report + signed evidence bundle.

npx @shield-agent/kya certify                  # gap report; exit 1 when gaps exist (CI-friendly)
npx @shield-agent/kya certify --open           # open the HTML report
npx @shield-agent/kya certify --fail-on never  # report only, always exit 0
npx @shield-agent/kya certify --attest SOC-01 --text "Acceptable-use policy: https://example.com/aup"
npx @shield-agent/kya certify --sign           # also emit a signed evidence-bundle.json

Certify is evidence-only. It never ALLOWs, DENYs, or blocks anything — the sole PEP remains Shield KYA. Trail-based machine checks never pass on an empty trail (they report insufficient_evidence). What a machine cannot check is covered by explicit local attestations (--attest), recorded in .kya/attestations.json — unverified operator statements, labeled as such.

--sign emits evidence-bundle.json: canonical JSON, ed25519-signed by a locally generated key (~/.kya/keys/evidence-ed25519.json, mode 0600, auto-created on first use). Each --sign run prints the signing key fingerprint; when the key was just created the CLI notes that key continuity resets there (earlier bundles stay verifiable only under the old pubkey). A self-signed developer key proves bundle integrity and continuity of a key — not identity. Identity binding and the verified badge are the hosted verification product (separate). The bundle format is open and documented in docs/certify.md; anyone can verify a bundle offline with the embedded pubkey.

Everything here is local, free, and offline: no account, no network calls, no license check. The catalog is MIT-licensed and PRs are welcome.

Optional sandbox wrap (Firecracker)

Beside the gate, not inside MCP. Opt-in only:

KYA_SANDBOX=mock kya sandbox spawn
KYA_SANDBOX=mock kya sandbox exec --sandbox-id <id> --cmd "true"
KYA_SANDBOX=mock kya sandbox kill --sandbox-id <id>

org.sample.sandbox.exec without --sandbox-id is DENY MISSING_SANDBOX_ID. Real Firecracker needs firecracker + jailer on PATH and kernel/rootfs env (KYA_SANDBOX_KERNEL, KYA_SANDBOX_ROOTFS). We do not ship those binaries. serve-mcp still exposes only evaluate / ingest / request_approval.

Cost showback (observe only)

kya orr run --usage ./usage.json (or .kya/usage.json) adds a showback section: tokens and estimated USD by agent and run. Subagents nest under parentRunId. That section is not a billing meter and not a policy gate. Hosted metrics show the same rollup when usage is ingested with a session.

Enterprise (separate tier)

Pin, private registry, multi-tenant density, ORR board ops, and support are not required for the day-1 npx path above.

Develop

pnpm install
pnpm test
pnpm build

Docs

• Install hub
• How KYA works
• Per-host recipes (23 hosts)
• Top-20 MCP server support matrix (taxonomy + gate recipes)
• OTLP metrics (OSS + hosted)
• OWASP MCP governance map
• kya certify — Agent Trust Baseline gap reports
• SDK & framework integrations (in-process shims)
• Hosted operator SSO / SCIM (not in OSS CLI)
• See also LIMITATIONS.md in this repo

OTLP (optional)

Opt-in. Default off.

OSS CLI: set KYA_OTLP_ENDPOINT (or OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT) to export thin evaluate latency (kya.client.evaluate.latency) with tags verdict and host only. No tool args or API keys.

Hosted plane: richer Micrometer gauges and timers when KYA_OTLP_ENABLED=true.

Full env, Grafana/Datadog notes, forbid list, and a Collector sample: docs/otlp.md.