u/That_Possession_8549

I was keep thinking about something stupid we all do as developers.

API key comes from some dashboard → copy it → terminal → .env → maybe notes → maybe another server.

and after that we call it "secret" 😅

I wanted something little different so I built Kavrix.

its a CLI credential vault, there is no Kavrix server or sync service in middle.

you run the CLI locally and you choose the MongoDB yourself. can be your local Mongo or remote one.

credential value gets encrypted before it reaches MongoDB. database stores the ciphertext, not plaintext.

some stuff I added:

• XChaCha20-Poly1305 encryption
• Argon2id protected key files
• masked terminal input
• explicit --reveal when you actually want plaintext
• recovery kits
• key rotation / rewrap
• rollback + same revision fork detection
• remote Mongo requires validated TLS
• doctor command for checking vault health

also tried not to pretend security is magic.

if somebody already own your unlocked machine, malware/keylogger/screenshots/process memory etc Kavrix obviously cant save you.

and if you lose every key + recovery kit, data is gone by design.

install is basically:

npm install --global kavrix

then

kavrix init
kavrix put github/token

I would really like feedback from selfhosted people on the storage model specially.

would you rather keep encrypted secrets in Mongo you control like this, or just keep entire vault as local file?

GitHub:
https://github.com/d4rkNinja/kavrix

docs/site:
https://kavrix.infynon.com/

been using Claude Code for bigger backend work and one problem I keep seeing is not really code generation.

Claude can write the code pretty fast.

problem is sometimes it decide the architecture even faster 😅

like you ask for payments, auth, retries, multi tenant stuff etc and suddenly there is a design decision spread across 15 files before you even noticed what decision it made.

so I started writing my own skills for the things I normally think about before touching backend code.

after adding more and more of them it became ArcForge.

right now there are 14 skills around:

• system architecture
• auth + permissions
• API contracts
• data/storage
• transactions + consistency
• async jobs / queues
• retries, rate limits, backpressure
• security/privacy
• production operations
• migrations
• testing/release readiness
• runtime/deployment
• AI/agent architecture
• architecture review

I didnt wanted them to just say "follow best practices".

I built them around basically 4 modes:

Think → Review → Change → Verify

so Claude can first think through requirements/invariants/failure modes, review what already exists, make the change and then actually verify what it did.

skills are normal Agent Skills folders with SKILL.md + deeper references/examples when needed, so its not tied to some custom runtime.

its completely free + open source (MIT).

repo:
https://github.com/d4rkNinja/arcforge

you can install all skills for Claude Code with:

npx --yes skills@1.5.22 add d4rkNinja/arcforge --skill '*' -a claude-code --copy -y

site/docs:
https://arcforge.infynon.com/

would genuinely like feedback from people here who maintain their own Claude skills.

specially curious if you prefer one big engineering skill or smaller skills split by domain like this.