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kovra kovra

Installation

kovra is two pieces:

  • kovra — the Rust CLI and the local vault (this is the core tool).
  • kovra-mcp — an optional Python package that exposes kovra to AI agents over MCP. You only need it to use kovra from Claude Code (or another MCP client).

Install the CLI

Section titled “Install the CLI”
Section titled “Homebrew (recommended)”
zsh
~ % brew install kaeus-inc/kovra/kovra

This installs the kovra binary and puts it on your PATH. Verify it:

zsh
~ % kovra --version
kovra 0.7.0

From source

Section titled “From source”

You need a recent Rust toolchain (kovra targets the 2024 edition). Clone the repo:

Terminal window
git clone https://github.com/kaeus-inc/kovra-core.git
cd kovra-core

Then build the release binary:

zsh
~/kovra-core % cargo build --release
   Compiling kovra-core v0.7.0 (…/kovra-core/crates/core)
   Compiling kovra-cli v0.7.0 (…/kovra-core/crates/cli)
    Finished `release` profile [optimized] target(s) in 1m 47s

The kovra binary lands in target/release/kovra. Copy it somewhere on your PATH:

Terminal window
cp target/release/kovra /usr/local/bin/

Install the MCP server (optional)

Section titled “Install the MCP server (optional)”

The MCP server lets an AI agent see scoped metadata and run commands through kovra’s wrapper, without ever receiving the plaintext of your sensitive secrets. It ships as the kovra-mcp Python package and provides a kovra-mcp command.

Terminal window
# once published to PyPI:
pipx install kovra-mcp
# or, with uv:
uv tool install kovra-mcp

You normally don’t run kovra-mcp by hand — it’s an MCP stdio server that your agent launches. kovra setup registers it for your project. Just confirm it’s on your PATH:

zsh
~ % which kovra-mcp
/Users/you/.local/bin/kovra-mcp

Next

Section titled “Next”

Head to the Quick start to initialize your vault, store your first secret, and inject it into a process.