AI privacy gateway · runs on every developer machine

Your AI sees the problem.
Not the secrets.

Vaultless Guard sits between Claude Code, Codex, Claude Desktop, every MCP tool and the model. Credentials, customer data and internal hosts are swapped for keyed tokens before a request leaves the laptop and swapped back when the answer arrives. Developers keep their tools. The provider sees tokens in place of every value the gateway detects.

No proxy in anyone's cloudNo TLS interceptionKeys never leave the deviceFails closed
1 typed
2 intercepted
3 tokenized
4 provider answers
5 restored

AI client · your laptop inside the boundary

answer appears here

vguard gateway127.0.0.1 · on the laptop

AI provider · the internet outside

nothing received yet
real value, never crosses the boundarytoken: random, keyed to this machine and sessionrestored on the laptop
3-minute explainer

How Vaultless Guard works, start to finish.

Read it step by step →
0 / 100sensitive values leaked in the release proof suite
130checks run by vguard prove before every release
195 msmedian time a turn spends in the gateway (2.3% of the turn): 179 live Claude Code turns on v0.32.0, Oct 2026
6AI surfaces covered: Claude Code, Codex, Desktop, MCP, connectors, CLI
Architecture

Three planes. One boundary nothing raw crosses.

Content is inspected where it is created, on the workstation. Across the boundary travel only three things: tokenized requests to the provider, counts and health to your console, and signed policy back. Pick a flow to follow it.

WORKSTATIONevery developer machine AI PROVIDERS CONTROL PLANE · SaaS or self-hosted privacy boundary Claude Code Codex · ChatGPT agent Claude Desktop VS Code · Desktop · CLI MCP serversGitHub · Jira · DBs · files vguard gateway127.0.0.1 · per machine detect · patterns, NER, feeds tokenize · local keys guardrails · tool pinning mcp-proxy · every server restore · hash-chained audit local vaultkeys · state · audit (~/.vguard) Anthropic API OpenAI · ChatGPT claude.ai · ChatGPT connectorsreach company MCP only through vguard mcp-gateway at your edge Organisation consolepolicy · fleet · compliance Operator portaltenants · licences SSO (OIDC) · SCIM PostgreSQL · row-level security SIEM export (OCSF) · webhooks · alerts real values ✕ tokens only counts + health signed policy & rules
Every AI client and MCP server on the machine talks to the local gateway. Raw values stop at the boundary.
Inside one request

Eight stages, in a fraction of a turn.

Every turn passes the same pipeline. Repeated history is answered from caches, so a long session pays for what is new, not for what came before.

1
ParseMessages, Responses or MCP JSON-RPC; every text field located.
2
DetectPatterns, NER, your dictionaries, signed customer feeds.
3
DecidePer category and origin: tokenize, redact, withhold, block.
4
TokenizeValues become keyed tokens; the model learns how to use them.
5
GuardTool calls checked against action guardrails before they run.
6
ForwardOnly now does the request leave, to the provider you already use.
7
RestoreStreamed answers get real values back, never into URLs.
8
AuditA hash-chained record of counts and categories, never content.
What it stops

The incidents your security team is worried about.

Each of these has happened to real teams using AI agents. Each one is stopped on the machine, before anything reaches a provider.

leak

Credentials in the prompt

An agent reads .env, a kubeconfig or a Terraform state. Keys and passwords become tokens; the agent still runs the command with the real value.

leak

Customer data in tool output

A database query or log returns names, emails, card numbers. The provider sees tokens; your engineer sees the rows.

exfil

Prompt injection

A web page or README tells the agent to send secrets to a URL. Values are never restored into outbound calls after an injection is seen.

damage

Destructive commands

Dropping a database, force-pushing, deleting a namespace: action guardrails (when on) stop the call before the agent can run it.

supply chain

Rug-pulled MCP tools

A tool that quietly changes its description after approval is held until an owner re-approves it. Shadow MCP servers are refused.

visibility

Silent drift

A machine that stops routing, a gateway that stops protecting: the daily self-test and the fleet view say so before an auditor does.

Why on the device

Other AI gateways move your secrets to their cloud.

A gateway hosted by a vendor has to see your prompts to protect them. That is one more copy of your data, in one more company. Vaultless Guard inspects where the data already is.

Cloud-hosted AI gateway

laptopvendor gatewaysees everythingmodel
  • ✕Your prompts and secrets pass through a third party
  • ✕A breach of the gateway is a breach of your data
  • ✕Needs a network path or TLS interception on every laptop
  • ✕Adds a round trip to every turn

Vaultless Guard

laptopgatewaymodeltokens only
  • ✓Detected values never leave the machine in clear, not even to us
  • ✓No vault of your secrets exists anywhere to breach
  • ✓Loopback only: no proxy, no root, no certificate
  • ✓195 ms median per turn (about 2%), cached history is not re-scanned and costs nothing
Five minutes

From install to protected.

One package, one command. It routes Claude Code and Codex, wraps every MCP server, joins your organisation and proves it works. For fleets, your MDM does the same with a signed profile.

macOS · Linuxper-user service, no root · Windows in preview
Jamf · Intune · Kandjimanaged, locked settings
zsh — developer laptop
Coverage

Every AI surface a company actually uses.

With the limits stated plainly, because a security product that overclaims is not one.

SurfaceHow it is coveredStatus
Claude Code: CLI, VS Code, JetBrains, Desktop Code tabRouted through the gateway; the user's own Claude subscription or key is kept. IT can pin it with Claude Code's managed settings.full
OpenAI Codex: CLI, IDE, app, ChatGPT agentRouted with the ChatGPT sign-in kept.full
MCP servers of every appvguard clients mcp wrap: results protected, calls checked, changed tools held.full
Company MCP used by cloud connectorsPublished through vguard mcp-gateway at your edge.full
Claude Desktop, whole appOfficial gateway mode (API or cloud-provider billing).full
Consumer chat apps on a personal subscriptionGo to the vendor directly; govern with tenant restrictions. Their MCP tools stay protected.not routable
GDPR Art. 5, 25, 32minimisation, pseudonymisation
PCI DSS 4.0.1cardholder data never forwarded
OWASP LLM Top 10LLM01, LLM02, LLM06
EU AI Actdeployer logging, Art. 26

Controls mapped to these frameworks with evidence; not a certification.

What we receive

Numbers. Nothing else.

Your console and our service receive versions, health, counts by category, the controls in force, and model names with token counts and estimated spend. Never:

prompt textfile contentsthe protected valuestoken keysfile pathsserver namesyour organisation salt
ON THE MACHINE prompts · files · values · keystokens ↔ originalsfull audit (content-free) counts · versions · health console

Give your developers the AI they want.
Give your auditors the evidence they need.

Protect one machine in five minutes, or the whole fleet with your MDM.