incredigo/VISION.md

incredigo — Vision

Catch vibe-coding security disasters before they happen.

You build an app in a weekend with Claude, OpenClaw, Hermes, Cursor. By Sunday night you've accumulated three dozen credentials — an Anthropic key, a Stripe sk_live, a DATABASE_URL, a GitHub PAT, an AWS access key, a Supabase service_role — each generated once, pasted into a .env, and forgotten. Maybe it got committed. Maybe it's in your shell history. Maybe it's in eight places. You'll "deal with security later."

incredigo is the safety net for later-that-never-comes. It finds every credential sprawled across your machine, locks them in a RAM-only vault, takes a verified backup, rotates the ones a script can rotate, and hands you a guided, ranked checklist for the ones that need a human — all local-first: no cloud, no server, no SaaS, one binary. The forgotten sk_live gets rotated before it becomes a breach disclosure.

One line: The local-first credential rotator that saves fast-moving AI-assisted builders from the security debt they're accumulating in real time.

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The problem

The "vibe coder" — the AI-assisted builder who ships fast and worries about security after the fact — is the fastest-growing developer cohort, and the one accruing credential risk fastest:

• Secrets sprawl is exploding. GitGuardian's State of Secrets Sprawl 2026: 29M new hardcoded secrets in 2025, +34% YoY, with each live secret appearing in ~8 locations on the same machine (.env, shell history, IDE configs, cached tokens, build artifacts).
• Generate-once, rotate-never. AI codegen mints keys on demand and pastes them inline. They are rarely scoped, rarely rotated, often duplicated, and frequently committed.
• No tool serves the cleanup. Enterprise PAM/secrets platforms (CyberArk, Vault, Doppler) rotate what already lives in their hub; they don't go discover the mess on your laptop. The one consumer attempt at automating the long tail (Dashlane) gave up as "too brittle."

That gap — discover the sprawl on this machine, then rotate it, self-custody, no cloud — is incredigo's reason to exist. (Full competitive analysis: docs/MARKET.md.)

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Who this is for

Primary — the security-literate-enough vibe coder. OpenClaw / Hermes / Claude-Code / Cursor builders who move fast and accumulate credentials across .env, ~/.aws, ~/.netrc, ~/.ssh, ~/.docker, ~/.kube, docker-compose.yml, plus a gopass store. They distrust (or can't legally use) a SaaS secret hub, live on the CLI, and want headless rotation in CI and an interactive TUI. Job-to-be-done: "Find every credential I have, back them up, rotate what's automatable, and give me a clean checklist for the rest — without anything leaving my machine."

Secondary — the non-technical password reuser. People who never change their passwords, reuse weak ones, and let the browser remember everything. The same engine (discover → back up → rotate / guide), with a friendlier face: point it at the browser's saved-login store, and it produces a ranked, deduplicated worklist with a direct change-password link per site — never a plaintext password dump, never bypassing MFA. The bridge from "developer tool" to "anyone with a password problem."

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The 20 credentials a vibe coder accumulates

The target surface. Each maps to how incredigo handles it: [DB] in-place database rotation driver · [API] provider-API rotation driver · [LOCAL] self-generated secret incredigo can regenerate + propagate · [GUIDE] no rotation API → guided worklist + change-URL (human in the loop, never bypassing MFA/CAPTCHA).

#	Credential	Where it lives	Why it bites vibe coders	Handling
1	LLM API keys (Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, Groq, OpenRouter, Mistral, HuggingFace)	.env, shell rc, ~/.config	The defining vibe-coder key; minted constantly, pasted inline, billed by usage	GUIDE → API
2	AI infra keys (Pinecone/Qdrant/Weaviate, Replicate/Fal/ElevenLabs/Stability)	.env	Spun up per experiment, never cleaned up	GUIDE
3	MCP / agent-gateway tokens (OpenClaw/Hermes/Claude MCP server configs)	~/.claude.json, MCP config files	Grant broad tool/host access; rarely scoped or rotated	GUIDE / LOCAL
4	AWS access keys	~/.aws/credentials, .env	Long-lived, over-privileged, leak to GitHub constantly	API (IAM)
5	GCP service-account JSON	~/.config/gcloud, .env	Whole-key files copied around	API
6	Cloudflare API token / global key	.env, ~/.cloudflared	Global key = account-wide; pasted into scripts	GUIDE / API
7	Deploy-platform tokens (Vercel, Netlify, Railway, Render, Fly.io)	.env, ~/.vercel	One token = full deploy control	GUIDE / API
8	Postgres DSN	.env DATABASE_URL, docker-compose.yml	Default/weak passwords, reused across envs	DB ✅
9	MySQL / MariaDB DSN	same	same	DB
10	Redis URL / password	.env, compose	Often no password at all	DB
11	Managed-DB keys (Supabase service_role, Neon, PlanetScale, Mongo Atlas)	.env	service_role bypasses row-level security — catastrophic if leaked	GUIDE / API
12	Git platform PATs (GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, Bitbucket)	~/.netrc, ~/.config/gh, git credential store	Broad-scope repo tokens; rarely expire	API
13	Package-registry tokens (npm ~/.npmrc, PyPI, crates.io)	home configs	Publish rights → supply-chain risk	GUIDE
14	Container-registry creds (Docker Hub, GHCR)	~/.docker/config.json	Base64 "auth" mistaken for encryption	GUIDE
15	CI/CD secrets (GitHub Actions secrets, workflow env)	repo settings, .github/workflows	59% of leaked-secret machines are CI runners	API / GUIDE
16	SSH private keys / deploy keys	~/.ssh/id_*	Unencrypted keys, shared deploy keys, never rotated	driver: regen + authorized_keys
17	Kubeconfig tokens / client certs	~/.kube/config	Cluster-admin creds in a dotfile	GUIDE
18	Payment / auth / messaging keys (Stripe sk_live, Clerk/Auth0/Firebase, Twilio, SendGrid/Resend, Slack/Discord, webhook signing secrets)	.env	Money + identity + spam blast radius	GUIDE / API
19	App signing / session secrets (Django SECRET_KEY, NextAuth secret, Rails master.key, JWT secrets)	.env, config	Self-generated randoms — easy to rotate, easy to forget	LOCAL: regenerate + propagate
20	Browser-saved passwords + manager exports	Chrome/Firefox login DB, CSV	Reused, weak, never changed (the secondary market)	GUIDE: worklist + change-URL

This list is the driver-ladder roadmap and the scanner roadmap at once: every [DB]/[API]/ [LOCAL] row is a future one-file Rotator; every row is a discovery surface.

Secondary-persona extension: network credentials (VPN + router)

The 20 above are the primary (vibe-coder) surface and remain the centre of gravity. Two adjacent credential classes serve the secondary persona ("anyone with a password problem") and are deliberately added — they reuse the same safe spine, not a new product:

• VPN keys/credentials. Self-hosted WireGuard rotates exactly like SSH ([LOCAL]: regenerate the keypair in RAM, propagate the new public key to the peer, verify the handshake, drop the old). Mullvad is the one mainstream consumer VPN with a real device-key rotation API ([API], account-number auth). Commercial account passwords (Nord/Express/Proton) have no rotation API → [GUIDE].
• Router admin password. OpenWrt (and other SSH/ubus-exposing prosumer firmware) is programmatically rotatable ([API/LOCAL] via uci/ubus). Generic consumer routers (TP-Link/Netgear/Asus web-UI) have no stable API → [GUIDE] / browser long-tail.

These stay within the non-goals below (self-owned only, never an attack tool, never bypass MFA/CAPTCHA); they do not pull incredigo toward enterprise network/PAM management.

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How incredigo answers it

The same safe spine for every credential, automatable or not:

1. Discover — scan the machine's credential surface (.env, ~/.aws, ~/.netrc, ~/.ssh, ~/.docker, ~/.kube, git, --path, browser export).
2. Custody — load secrets into a RAM-only memguard vault (mlock/DONTDUMP); plaintext never hits disk.
3. Backup (mandatory) — a sealed, verified snapshot before anything changes. No backup, no rotation. Non-negotiable.
4. Rotate — drivers change the automatable ones in place (verify-new-before-revoke-old), and close the blast radius by guiding consumer updates (.env, CI vars, k8s).
5. Guide — for the no-API long tail, emit a ranked, deduplicated worklist with per-site change-password links; the human acts, MFA/CAPTCHA are never bypassed.

Headless for CI ($INCREDIGO_PASSPHRASE, no TTY) or interactive via the TUI. The PGP passphrase is the single root of trust — back up the key, use a strong passphrase.

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Non-goals

• Not enterprise PAM. No fight with CyberArk/Vault/Delinea over machine-identity-at-scale, compliance certifications, or a managed cloud service. (See docs/MARKET.md.)
• Not a SaaS secret hub. No server, no daemon, no telemetry, nothing leaves the machine.
• Not an attack tool. Self-owned accounts only, with the owner's authorization. Never resembles credential stuffing or account takeover; never bypasses MFA/CAPTCHA — it hands off to the human.
• Not "auto-change everything." Fully-silent browser rotation is a known tar pit (Dashlane). incredigo rotates what's scriptable and guides the rest.

See DESIGN.md for architecture + threat model and docs/MARKET.md for the competitive landscape.