<div align="center"> <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/I4cTime/q-ring/main/assets/social-card-optimized.jpg" alt="q-ring — never paste an API key into .env again" width="100%" /> </div>

q-ring

OS keychain secrets for AI coding agents, over MCP.

<a href="https://glama.ai/mcp/servers/I4cTime/q-ring"> <img src="https://glama.ai/mcp/servers/I4cTime/q-ring/badges/card.svg" alt="q-ring MCP server" width="400" /> </a>

Stop pasting API keys into plain-text .env files or wrestling with clunky secret managers. q-ring securely anchors your credentials to your OS's native vault (macOS Keychain, Linux Secret Service, Windows Credential Vault) and supercharges them with mechanics from quantum physics.

📖 View the Official Documentation for a complete CLI reference, MCP prompt cookbooks, and architecture details.

Why q-ring?

• Superposition: Store one key with multiple states (dev/staging/prod) that collapse based on context.
• Entanglement: Link keys across projects so rotating one automatically updates them all.
• Tunneling: Create ephemeral, in-memory secrets that self-destruct after a set time or read count.
• Teleportation: Securely pack and share AES-256-GCM encrypted secret bundles.
• Seamless AI Integration: 44 built-in MCP tools for native use in Cursor, Kiro, and Claude Code.

🚀 Installation

q-ring is designed to be installed globally so it's available anywhere in your terminal. Pick your favorite package manager:

# pnpm (recommended)
pnpm add -g @i4ctime/q-ring

# npm
npm install -g @i4ctime/q-ring

# yarn
yarn global add @i4ctime/q-ring

# Homebrew (macOS / Linux)
brew install i4ctime/tap/qring

Docker (MCP server)

The repo ships a Dockerfile that builds the MCP server and exposes it through mcp-proxy — useful for hosted MCP deployments (e.g. Glama) or keeping the server off the host entirely:

git clone https://github.com/I4cTime/q-ring.git
cd q-ring
docker build -t qring-mcp .
docker run --rm -p 8080:8080 qring-mcp

Note: inside a container there is no OS keychain (GNOME Keyring / macOS Keychain), so this path is for the MCP protocol surface, ephemeral use, and CI experiments — not for durable local secret storage. For day-to-day use install the CLI natively via one of the package managers above.

⚡ Quick Start

# 1️⃣ Store a secret (prompts securely if value is omitted)
qring set OPENAI_API_KEY sk-...

# 2️⃣ Retrieve it anytime
qring get OPENAI_API_KEY

# 3️⃣ List all keys (values are never shown)
qring list

# 4️⃣ Generate a cryptographic secret and save it
qring generate --format api-key --prefix "sk-" --save MY_KEY

# 5️⃣ Run a full health scan
qring health

# Something not working? Diagnose the install (keyring, audit, MCP wiring)
qring doctor

# Tab completion for your shell
qring completion zsh > ~/.zsh/completions/_qring   # also: bash, fish

Quantum Features

Superposition — One Key, Multiple Environments

A single secret can hold different values for dev, staging, and prod simultaneously. The correct value resolves based on your current context.

# Set environment-specific values
qring set API_KEY "sk-dev-123" --env dev
qring set API_KEY "sk-stg-456" --env staging
qring set API_KEY "sk-prod-789" --env prod

# Value resolves based on context
QRING_ENV=prod qring get API_KEY   # → sk-prod-789
QRING_ENV=dev  qring get API_KEY   # → sk-dev-123

# Inspect the quantum state
qring inspect API_KEY

Wavefunction Collapse — Smart Environment Detection

q-ring auto-detects your environment without explicit flags. Resolution order:

1. --env flag
2. QRING_ENV environment variable
3. NODE_ENV environment variable
4. Git branch heuristics (main/master → prod, develop → dev)
5. .q-ring.json project config
6. Default environment from the secret

# See what environment q-ring detects
qring env

# Project config (.q-ring.json)
echo '{"env": "staging", "branchMap": {"release/*": "staging"}}' > .q-ring.json

Quantum Decay — Secrets with TTL

Secrets can have a time-to-live. Expired secrets are blocked from reads. Stale secrets (75%+ lifetime) trigger warnings.

# Set a secret that expires in 1 hour
qring set SESSION_TOKEN "tok-..." --ttl 3600

# Set with explicit expiry
qring set CERT_KEY "..." --expires "2026-06-01T00:00:00Z"

# Health check shows decay status
qring health

Observer Effect — Audit Everything

Every secret read, write, and delete is logged with a tamper-evident hash chain. Access patterns are tracked for anomaly detection.

# View audit log
qring audit
qring audit --key OPENAI_KEY --limit 50

# Detect anomalies (burst access, unusual hours, chain tampering)
qring audit --anomalies

# Verify audit chain integrity
qring audit:verify

# Export audit log
qring audit:export --format json --since 2026-03-01
qring audit:export --format csv --output audit-report.csv

Quantum Noise — Secret Generation

Generate cryptographically strong secrets in common formats.

qring generate                          # API key (default)
qring generate --format password -l 32  # Strong password
qring generate --format uuid            # UUID v4
qring generate --format token           # Base64url token
qring generate --format hex -l 64       # 64-byte hex
qring generate --format api-key --prefix "sk-live-" --save STRIPE_KEY

Entanglement — Linked Secrets

Link secrets across projects. When you rotate one, all entangled copies update automatically.

# Entangle two secrets
qring entangle API_KEY API_KEY_BACKUP

# Now updating API_KEY also updates API_KEY_BACKUP
qring set API_KEY "new-value"

# Unlink entangled secrets
qring disentangle API_KEY API_KEY_BACKUP

Tunneling — Ephemeral Secrets

Create secrets that exist only in memory. They never touch disk. Optional TTL and max-read self-destruction.

# Create an ephemeral secret (returns tunnel ID)
qring tunnel create "temporary-token-xyz" --ttl 300 --max-reads 1

# Read it (self-destructs after this read)
qring tunnel read tun_abc123

# List active tunnels
qring tunnel list

Teleportation — Encrypted Sharing

Pack secrets into AES-256-GCM encrypted bundles for secure transfer between machines. Keys are derived with PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA512 (210 000 iterations) from your passphrase; each bundle records its iteration count, so bundles produced by older versions still unpack.

# Pack secrets (prompts for passphrase)
qring teleport pack --keys "API_KEY,DB_PASS" > bundle.txt

# On another machine: unpack (prompts for passphrase)
cat bundle.txt | qring teleport unpack

# Preview without importing
qring teleport unpack <bundle> --dry-run

Import — Bulk Secret Ingestion

Import secrets from .env files directly into q-ring. Supports standard dotenv syntax including comments, quoted values, and escape sequences. The CLI accepts either a file path or raw content; the import_dotenv MCP tool only accepts raw content (it never reads files from disk) so an agent can't coerce it into reading arbitrary local files.

# Import all secrets from a .env file
qring import .env

# Import to project scope, skipping existing keys
qring import .env --project --skip-existing

# Preview what would be imported
qring import .env --dry-run

Selective Export

Export only the secrets you need using key names or tag filters.

# Export specific keys
qring export --keys "API_KEY,DB_PASS,REDIS_URL"

# Export by tag
qring export --tags "backend"

# Combine with format
qring export --keys "API_KEY,DB_PASS" --format json

Secret Search and Filtering

Filter qring list output by tag, expiry state, or key pattern.

# Filter by tag
qring list --tag backend

# Show only expired secrets
qring list --expired

# Show only stale secrets (75%+ decay)
qring list --stale

# Glob pattern on key name
qring list --filter "API_*"

# Script-friendly existence check (exit 0 if present, 1 if not; decay-aware)
qring has OPENAI_API_KEY --quiet && echo "configured"

Project Secret Manifest

Declare required secrets in .q-ring.json and validate project readiness with a single command.

# Validate project secrets against the manifest
qring check

# See which secrets are present, missing, expired, or stale
qring check --project-path /path/to/project

Env File Sync

Generate a .env file from the project manifest, resolving each key from q-ring with environment-aware superposition collapse.

# Generate to stdout
qring env:generate

# Write to a file
qring env:generate --output .env

# Force a specific environment
qring env:generate --env staging --output .env.staging

Secret References & Least-Privilege Run

A qring:// reference is a committable pointer to a secret — it goes in your .env file instead of the value. qring run resolves references and manifest keys at spawn time, injecting only what the project declares (unlike exec, which injects the whole scope). Output is auto-redacted.

# .env — safe to commit: these are references, not values
DATABASE_URL=qring://project/DATABASE_URL
OPENAI_API_KEY=qring://global/OPENAI_API_KEY
STRIPE_KEY=qring:///STRIPE_KEY            # auto scope: project, then global
SESSION_TTL=3600                          # plain values pass through

# Run with declared secrets injected (manifest + .env refs)
qring run -- pnpm dev

# Preview what would be injected, without running
qring run --dry-run -- pnpm dev

# Pin an environment, use a specific env file, or skip the manifest
qring run --env prod --env-file .env.prod --no-manifest -- ./deploy.sh

The key lives in the path, never the host (qring://project/KEY, not qring://KEY) — URL hosts are case-insensitive, and env-var keys are not. Malformed references fail loudly instead of leaking a literal qring://… string into the child. A reference pinned to an environment: qring://project/DATABASE_URL?env=prod.

Editor Setup

Wire the q-ring MCP se