Sovereign Vault Storage (sovereign-vault)

Sovereign Vault Storage is the encrypted, local-first persistence layer inside @ItsnotAILabs’ sovereign_harness framework. Nano-agents instantiate it directly (self.vault = SovereignVault()) for fast in-memory reads and writes alongside LoomMemoriaEngine search and ToolRegistry execution.

It functions as a sealed, policy-gated store rather than a conventional database: data is sliced, encrypted client-side with AES-256-GCM, committed via Merkle roots to Kiln L1, and accessed through hashes, receipts, or abstracted commitments instead of raw contents. The same primitive appears as the “origin vault” in Kiln (an encrypted, self-sealing Git forge) and as the NERVUS Vault Ledger that records tamper-proof OS-level state transitions.

The design supports the project’s core claim of sovereign AI—user-held keys, on-device secrets, blockchain provenance, and agent-first occupancy of the stored lattice—while remaining published here as a standalone public package. Related open work lives in the ItsNotAILABS GitHub org (KILN, pocket-agent, CAPSULA).

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Architecture Topology

graph TD
    subgraph Client Application Layer
        Agent["Nano-Agent / Autonomous Workflow"]
        SDK["Sovereign Vault SDK (sovereign_vault)"]
        CLI["sovereign-vault CLI"]
    end

    subgraph Security & Policy Gate
        POLICY["PolicyGatedStore (AES-256-GCM + PBKDF2)"]
        MASKER["Secret Masking Engine"]
        KEY_STORE["User-Held Key Master (Zero-Custody)"]
    end

    subgraph Cryptographic Provenance Layer
        MERKLE["MerkleTree (SHA-256 State Slices)"]
        RECEIPT["VaultReceipt (Merkle Roots & Commitments)"]
    end

    subgraph External Sync Gateways
        KILN["Kiln L1 Origin Vault (Git Forge)"]
        NERVUS["NERVUS OS State Ledger"]
        HF_HUB["Hugging Face Hub (ItsnotAILabs/sovereign-vault)"]
    end

    Agent -->|self.vault = SovereignVault()| POLICY
    SDK --> POLICY
    CLI --> POLICY

    POLICY --> KEY_STORE
    POLICY --> MASKER
    POLICY --> MERKLE

    MERKLE --> RECEIPT
    RECEIPT --> KILN
    RECEIPT --> NERVUS
    RECEIPT --> HF_HUB

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Quickstart & Installation

pip install sovereign-vault

1. Basic In-Memory & Local Encrypted Storage

from sovereign_vault import SovereignVault

# Instantiate local-first zero-custody vault
vault = SovereignVault(passphrase="my-ultra-secure-passphrase")

# Encrypt & store secrets (AES-256-GCM)
vault.set_key("OPENAI_API_KEY", "sk-proj-1234567890abcdef")
vault.set_key("DATABASE_URL", "postgresql://admin:secret@localhost:5432/sovereign_db")

# Retrieve secret
secret = vault.get_key("OPENAI_API_KEY")
print(f"Retrieved Secret: {secret[:10]}...")

# Sanitize text logs before passing to LLMs
log_output = "Connected to postgresql://admin:secret@localhost:5432/sovereign_db successfully"
masked = vault.mask_secrets(log_output)
print(f"Sanitized: {masked}")
# Output: "Connected to [SECRET_MASKED_pos..._db] successfully"

2. Merkle Root Commitments & Provenance Receipts

from sovereign_vault import MerkleVaultLedger

# Instantiate Merkle commitment ledger
ledger = MerkleVaultLedger()

# Commit state slices to Merkle tree
receipt1 = ledger.commit_slice("STATE_SLICE_001", {"agent": "alpha_lead", "status": "COHERENT"})
receipt2 = ledger.commit_slice("STATE_SLICE_002", {"agent": "process_worker", "pid": 18648})

print(f"Merkle Root: {ledger.get_merkle_root()}")
print(f"Receipt 1 Proof Hash: {receipt1.proof_hash}")

# Verify tamper-proof state commitment
is_valid = ledger.verify_receipt(receipt1)
print(f"Receipt Validated: {is_valid}")

3. Hugging Face Hub Synchronization (ItsnotAILabs/sovereign-vault)

from sovereign_vault import HuggingFaceVaultSync

# Sync encrypted commitments & receipts to Hugging Face Hub repository
sync = HuggingFaceVaultSync(repo_id="ItsnotAILabs/sovereign-vault")

# Push local state Merkle commitment receipt to HF Hub
sync.push_commitment(
    receipt=receipt1,
    commit_message="Commit Merkle state slice for Sovereign AI node"
)

---

CLI Usage

# Initialize encrypted vault
sovereign-vault init --passphrase "my-secret-passphrase"

# Store secret
sovereign-vault set --key ANTHROPIC_KEY --val "sk-ant-12345"

# Retrieve secret
sovereign-vault get --key ANTHROPIC_KEY

# Mask secrets in log stream
sovereign-vault mask --text "Using token sk-ant-12345 to authenticate"

# Generate Merkle state root receipt
sovereign-vault merkle --slice "NODE_STATE_ALPHA"

# Sync commitment receipt to Hugging Face Hub
sovereign-vault sync-hf --repo "ItsnotAILabs/sovereign-vault"

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Core Principles & Security Guarantee

1. Zero-Custody Client-Side Encryption: Raw keys and secrets are encrypted client-side with AES-256-GCM using PBKDF2HMAC (100,000 iterations). Keys are never stored unencrypted or transmitted to third-party servers.
2. Policy-Gated Slicing: Data is stored as encrypted slices referenced by Merkle root commitments.
3. Tamper-Proof Provenance: Merkle root tree hashes anchor local state transitions for Kiln L1, NERVUS OS, and Hugging Face Hub synchronization.
4. LLM Context Protection: Automatic regex and exact-match string sanitization prevents raw credentials from leaking into agent prompt buffers.

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Related Repositories in @ItsnotAILabs

• KILN: Encrypted, self-sealing Git forge & L1 provenance chain.
• pocket-agent: On-device edge agent framework.
• CAPSULA: Distributed agentic runtime & container capsule engine.

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License

MIT © ItsnotAILabs