The MCP server provides a local CLI “KYA MCP gate” for Shield’s Know Your Agent path. It evaluates and ingests agent/tool requests and requires request approval, using Shield as the policy decision point. The gate can respond with Allow, Hold, or Deny, and Hold waits for a person.
🛠️ Key Features
Evaluate, ingest, and request approval via Shield
Registers an agent and wraps a tool
Approval outcomes: Allow, Hold, Deny
“Hold” pauses for human review
Does not scan your network
Agents that never call evaluate remain invisible by design
🚀 Use Cases
Gate agent actions that can change a real system
Use Shield as the single policy decision point for MCP/OpenAPI-speaking hosts
Apply the Know Your Agent flow through a CLI workflow
AI agents audit trail & traceability. Every tool call your coding agents make — gated (Allow / Review / Deny), recorded on a live local dashboard, and certifiable against the Agent Trust Baseline. One command. Free forever under MIT.
bash
npm i -g @shield-agent/kya@latest && kya start
Requires Node.js 24+. Restart Cursor / Claude Code / Codex once so MCP loads. Hosted desk: shield-agent.com.
CLI and local MCP gate for Shield’s Know Your Agent path.
If an agent can change a real system, it has to ask Shield first. You register the agent, wrap the tool, and get Allow, Review, or Deny. Review waits for a person. This package does not scan your network. Agents that never call evaluate stay invisible on purpose.
Requires Node.js 24+ (engines.node: >=24). On an older Node the CLI offers to install 24 for you (via volta / fnm / nvm / brew), reinstall itself, and finish the command — declining just prints a warning and continues.
It works with any host that speaks MCP or OpenAPI. Vertical packs are optional. Shield is the only policy decision point: this gate never auto-approves an irreversible side effect.
If KYA_API_KEY is empty against an authenticated plane, network commands exit non-zero. eval-tool, wrap, and invoke exit 0 on ALLOW, 4 on REQUIRE_APPROVE, and 1 on DENY or unknown, so a line like eval-tool && write cannot skip the gate.
--offline runs sample evaluate without a paid cloud (useful for DENY and REQUIRE_APPROVE demos). Creating an agent is itself a tool: offline, kya.agent.register comes back REQUIRE_APPROVE. Allow, break-glass, and approve mint modes live on the control plane.
One liner
bash
npm i -g @shield-agent/kya@latest && kya start
Run it in your project directory. (From a clone of this repo, ./scripts/install-local.sh replaces the npm install.)
That inits.kya/, wires local MCP (.mcp.json, mcp.json, .cursor/mcp.json → kya serve-mcp --stdio), also wires user-level configs for every installed host it detects (~/.claude.json, ~/.kimi-code/, ~/.grok/, ~/.cursor/, …), and opens the live activity report. The report runs in the background — you get your terminal back; kya stop stops it, kya receipt --open reopens it. Cursor, Kiro, Qwen, Amp, Droid, Cline, and Grok pick the server up live with no restart (Kimi: just a new session); Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Gemini, Copilot CLI, and Kilo CLI load it on next launch — claude --resume keeps your conversation.
bash
kya start --no-open # wire only
kya start --force # rewrite MCP blocks# Receipt change previews (clipped + redacted): on by default for writes# KYA_DIFF_PREVIEW=0 to disable
One command per host
kya start covers Claude Code, Cursor, and any host that reads .mcp.json — and auto-wires the user-level config of every installed host it detects. For the rest, kya connect writes the host's own config dialect directly:
Connect merges — it never rewrites a host config it can't parse, and it keeps your other servers and keys. Supported hosts: claude, grok, opencode, kilo, kiro, qwen, kimi, mastracode, amp, copilot, cursor. Each wires serve-mcp --stdio with KYA_OFFLINE=1 so the gate starts keyless; set KYA_API_KEY in the host env when you point at an authenticated plane.
Hosts without a connect target still work: kya wrap --offline -- <agent command> puts the same evaluate gate in front of any CLI. Per-host recipes with verify steps and troubleshooting live in docs/hosts/.
Hook interception
kya start also wires a PreToolUse hook into every installed hook-capable host it detects: Claude Code (~/.claude/settings.json, merge-only), Grok (~/.grok/hooks/shield-kya.json, kya-managed file), and Kimi Code (~/.kimi-code/config.toml, [[hooks]] append). Every tool call the agent makes then passes through kya hook first: evaluated locally (offline, sub-second, no network) and recorded on the global trail.
Decision mapping: a local never-list DENY blocks the tool call (exit 2 plus hookSpecificOutput deny JSON with permissionDecision: "deny"). ALLOW and REQUIRE_APPROVE are recorded on the trail as advisory and the call proceeds. Manual wiring can pass --strict on the hook command to also block REQUIRE_APPROVE.
Hooks are fail-open: any hook error or timeout allows the call. They are alerts plus local never-list enforcement, not the sole barrier — plane enforcement remains the MCP kya.policy_evaluate path. Hooks take effect in new sessions; all three hosts load hooks at session start.
bash
kya connect claude --hooks # wire the PreToolUse hook by hand
kya connect grok --hooks
kya connect kimi --hooks
Gate (local MCP gateway)
kya gate puts one loopback-only listener (127.0.0.1, default port 3930) in front of any MCP server you already use. Your host talks to the gateway; the gateway fans out to the real servers. Per-tool policy is generated from the top-20 server taxonomy — destructive names (drop/truncate/purge/transfer) and each server's ADMIN-tier tools are denied outright (and filtered from tools/list), everything else runs in observe mode: allowed, and audited. Every call is traced into the local trail and the live report, and can be forwarded as OTLP to the hosted intake.
Zero-touch:kya start already does this for you. It scans your detected host configs for third-party MCP servers, imports them into .kya/gateways.json (recorded with an importedFrom provenance field), installs the gateway binary, starts the listener, and rewrites each source host so the imported servers route through the gateway — the original host config is preserved under .kya/backups/ before anything is removed. Nothing found → nothing downloaded, no listener. Opt out with kya start --no-gate or KYA_GATE=off. If the binary download fails (offline, no network), kya start warns once and continues without the gateway — host configs stay untouched. The manual path below is still there when you want full control:
bash
kya gate init # scaffold .kya/gateways.json with ready-to-move recipes# edit gateways.json: move a recipe into "servers", fill its placeholders
kya gate setup # download the pinned gateway binary into .kya/bin
kya gate run # generate the gateway config, start the listener detached
kya connect claude --gate # point the host at the gateway (server key shield-kya-gate)
kya gate doctor # binary, config, listener health, loopback-only posture
kya gate stop stops the supervisor and the binary with it. Honest notes: kya gate setup (and kya start's auto-bootstrap, only when it found servers to govern) downloads the pinned gateway binary from our releases — nothing else fetches anything; run never downloads. Observe mode means allowed calls are recorded, not blocked — the deny set above is the only hard stop, and plane enforcement stays with kya.policy_evaluate. kya connect <host> --gate covers the same hosts as plain connect — grok gets a [mcp_servers.shield-kya-gate] url table in its config.toml (Grok supports remote MCP servers over HTTP). Per-server tiers and recipes: docs/mcp-servers.md.
One trail for all projects: ~/.kya/trail.jsonl (KYA_HOME overrides ~). kya receipt --open from any directory shows activity from every project. Each event carries its project folder name — the report adds a Projects rollup once two or more projects appear, and shows the project on each feed entry. Older per-project <project>/.kya/trail.jsonl files are still read and merged; no migration. The trail is capped at 1 MB (tail-read: oldest events drop away), shared across all projects.
The report itself is a dashboard: a hero row on top (live Certify result, verdict mix, activity sparkline, showback) with tabbed sections below — Overview (analytics, sessions, reasons), Certify (the full live requirement table — every requirement grouped by domain with status, evidence, and attestation), Activity (the filterable event feed), System (wired hosts, sandboxes, ORR). Everything is one standalone offline HTML page (the live view adds a single external link: "Star on GitHub"); the live daemon from kya start re-renders it on every event.
Sharing a report
kya receipt --share publishes a redacted summary of the current window (aggregate verdict counts, product and reason-code rollups, and the Certify status — no paths, no tool arguments, no session IDs) to shield-agent.com and prints a public URL (/r/<id>, expires after 7 days) anyone can open — every shared page carries the one-line install so readers can audit their own agents. Point it at a different collector with --share-url <base> or KYA_SHARE_URL.
Natural-language search
The Activity search box understands plain English. It runs a hybrid of BM25 over tool IDs, summaries, reason codes, projects, and MCP server labels, plus optional local MiniLM semantic reranking. You can type things like failed stripe transfers, files written by grok, or approval required production — stopwords and stemming are handled automatically, and the same search works across the global trail.
Offline or KYA_OFFLINE=1 keeps search purely lexical (no model download).
By default the live server downloads BAAI/bge-small-en-v1.5 once into ~/.kya/models and caches event vectors in ~/.kya/search-index.json.
KYA_SEARCH_SEMANTIC=off disables the model while still keeping BM25.
The hosted console uses the same hybrid search on the server side (Postgres full-text + optional OpenAI-compatible embeddings), so queries typed in either place behave the same way.
Tag sessions with KYA_HOST=ide or KYA_HOST=runtime. Same policy path either way.
Environment
Variable
Required
Meaning
KYA_BASE_URL
Yes (network cmds)
Control plane origin
KYA_API_KEY
When auth is on
API key (or Bearer JWT for decide verbs)
KYA_HOST
No (default ide)
ide | runtime
KYA_AGENT_ID
After register
Agent principal id
KYA_MCP_PORT
No (default 3920)
HTTP MCP listen port
KYA_OFFLINE
No
1/true for sample evaluate
KYA_HOLD
No
1/true for the org Hold path (REQUIRE_APPROVE opens a human ticket)
KYA_DASH_PLAN
No
enterprise unlocks licensed TUI panes
KYA_DIFF_PREVIEW
No
0 disables clipped change previews on the receipt
KYA_RECEIPT_AUTO
No
0 disables auto-open receipt after wrap; 1 forces
KYA_SEARCH_SEMANTIC
No
off disables MiniLM semantic reranking (BM25 still works)
KYA_SHARE_URL
No
kya receipt --share collector base (default https://shield-agent.com)
Gate mode can also be pinned in the project's .kya/config.json:
{"gateMode": "hold"} or {"gateMode": "offline"} (exact values only —
anything else is ignored). The gate itself (wrap / hook / eval) honors it
with the precedence flags > env > config > observe, and kya certify
reports through the same resolver, so a certify pass on gate mode always
reflects how the gate actually runs.
MCP tools
Tool
Role
kya.policy_evaluate
ALLOW | DENY | REQUIRE_APPROVE
kya.session_ingest
Observe / raise-only risk
kya.request_approval
Open a human Hold. Does not execute the side effect
MCP Registry entry: server.json plus package mcpNameio.github.The-Pixel-Boys/shield-kya.
wrap evaluates and may open a pending ticket. It never executes the side effect. invoke asks the live plane to authorize after Allow or APPROVED. It does not run the write on this machine. The TUI (dash) can a/x decide only after y confirm with a JWT (sk_* refused).
In-process SDK shims
Agents built on LangGraph.js, the Vercel AI SDK, Mastra, OpenAI Agents TS, or the Claude Agent SDK can route tool calls through the same evaluate path without a gateway:
Offline evaluate by default (no network, no hosted plane); an explicit config honors the live plane. governA2aSend gates in-process agent-to-agent sends. Python frameworks (LangGraph, CrewAI, Pydantic AI, ADK, AutoGen, smolagents) use the shield-kya shim (sdks/kya-python/), which delegates to the local kya CLI. Support matrix and recipes: docs/sdk-integrations.md; runnable scripts: examples/sdk/.
Claude connector
Desktop / Claude Code (local stdio):
bash
# Prefer a preinstalled package (no registry auto-install):
npx --no-install @shield-agent/kya@0.21.0 serve-mcp --stdio
# Or after npm i -g / local install:
kya serve-mcp --stdio
Copy claude/claude_desktop_config.example.json into Claude Desktop MCP settings, or use .mcp.json for Claude Code. Pack a Desktop extension with npx @anthropic-ai/mcpb pack (see manifest.json). That pack runs the packed dist/cli.js, not npx -y.
Claude.ai / Cowork (hosted): add a custom connector at https://shield-agent.com/mcp with request header Authorization: Bearer <KYA_API_KEY> (or X-API-Key). It is not Directory-listed yet (API-key auth, no OAuth DCR).
OpenAI (Codex / Responses)
Codex CLI / IDE: copy openai/codex.config.example.toml into ~/.codex/config.toml. Local stdio uses npx --no-install @shield-agent/kya@0.21.0 serve-mcp --stdio. Hosted Codex uses url = "https://shield-agent.com/mcp" with bearer_token_env_var = "KYA_API_KEY".
Responses API: see openai/responses-mcp.example.json (server_url + Authorization: Bearer <KYA_API_KEY>).
ChatGPT Apps (chatgpt.com): deferred. Developer Mode wants OAuth. Use Codex until then.
Gemini CLI
Merge gemini/settings.example.json (stdio) or gemini/settings.hosted.example.json (httpUrl + Bearer) into ~/.gemini/settings.json or .gemini/settings.json. Do not enable both at once.
Grok
Grok CLI (local):kya connect grok appends a [mcp_servers.shield-kya] table to ~/.grok/config.toml (serve-mcp --stdio, keyless offline sample evaluate). In a running session, press r in /mcps to refresh.
grok.com (hosted): custom connector at https://shield-agent.com/mcp (see grok/README.md). Grok rejects localhost. Prefer a Bearer machine key when the UI offers a request header.
More hosts
Each ships a copy-paste example in its own directory; kya connect <host> writes the same thing for the starred ones. Full recipes (verify, uninstall, troubleshooting): docs/hosts/.
Host
Setup
Example
Claude Code
kya connect claude (or kya start)
— (merges ~/.claude.json / .mcp.json)
Grok CLI
kya connect grok
— (appends [mcp_servers.shield-kya] to ~/.grok/config.toml)
ORR is a reporting board. Scanners, --scorecard, and harness.agentshield are evidence. They never ALLOW a high-stakes side effect, so they are not a second policy gate. AgentShield is optional and read-only: no --fix, no MiniClaw, no runtime hook. This package does not depend on ecc-agentshield. If you pass --producer harness.agentshield and have neither --agentshield-json nor an agentshield binary, ORR records a coverage gap and still exits 0. Explicit --producer always attempts; --skip-optional-producers only skips producers you did not ask for.
Certify (continuous agent assurance)
kya certify evaluates the open Agent Trust Baseline catalog (catalog/agent-trust-baseline-v0.json — 30 requirements across Data & Privacy, Security, Safety, Reliability, Accountability, Society) against local evidence: the global trail, ORR output, wired hosts, sandbox inventory, receipts, showback, and your recorded attestations. It writes a gap report to .kya/certify/ (JSON + Markdown + HTML). The gap list is your work plan. The receipt report shows the same state live: a Certify panel recomputed on every render (so kya start's live report updates as events stream in), plus a dedicated Certify tab with the full live requirement table — run kya certify for the full gap report + signed evidence bundle.
bash
npx @shield-agent/kya certify # gap report; exit 1 when gaps exist (CI-friendly)
npx @shield-agent/kya certify --open # open the HTML report
npx @shield-agent/kya certify --fail-on never # report only, always exit 0
npx @shield-agent/kya certify --attest SOC-01 --text "Acceptable-use policy: https://example.com/aup"
npx @shield-agent/kya certify --sign # also emit a signed evidence-bundle.json
Certify is evidence-only. It never ALLOWs, DENYs, or blocks anything — the sole PEP remains Shield KYA. Trail-based machine checks never pass on an empty trail (they report insufficient_evidence). What a machine cannot check is covered by explicit local attestations (--attest), recorded in .kya/attestations.json — unverified operator statements, labeled as such.
--sign emits evidence-bundle.json: canonical JSON, ed25519-signed by a locally generated key (~/.kya/keys/evidence-ed25519.json, mode 0600, auto-created on first use). Each --sign run prints the signing key fingerprint; when the key was just created the CLI notes that key continuity resets there (earlier bundles stay verifiable only under the old pubkey). A self-signed developer key proves bundle integrity and continuity of a key — not identity. Identity binding and the verified badge are the hosted verification product (separate). The bundle format is open and documented in docs/certify.md; anyone can verify a bundle offline with the embedded pubkey.
Everything here is local, free, and offline: no account, no network calls, no license check. The catalog is MIT-licensed and PRs are welcome.
org.sample.sandbox.exec without --sandbox-id is DENYMISSING_SANDBOX_ID. Real Firecracker needs firecracker + jailer on PATH and kernel/rootfs env (KYA_SANDBOX_KERNEL, KYA_SANDBOX_ROOTFS). We do not ship those binaries. serve-mcp still exposes only evaluate / ingest / request_approval.
Cost showback (observe only)
kya orr run --usage ./usage.json (or .kya/usage.json) adds a showback section: tokens and estimated USD by agent and run. Subagents nest under parentRunId. That section is not a billing meter and not a policy gate. Hosted metrics show the same rollup when usage is ingested with a session.
Enterprise (separate tier)
Pin, private registry, multi-tenant density, ORR board ops, and support are not required for the day-1 npx path above.
OSS CLI: set KYA_OTLP_ENDPOINT (or OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT) to export thin evaluate latency (kya.client.evaluate.latency) with tags verdict and host only. No tool args or API keys.
Hosted plane: richer Micrometer gauges and timers when KYA_OTLP_ENABLED=true.
Full env, Grafana/Datadog notes, forbid list, and a Collector sample: docs/otlp.md.
Install
Configuration
Environment variables
KYA_BASE_URLrequired
Control plane origin (e.g. http://127.0.0.1:8090 or hosted URL)
KYA_API_KEYrequiredsecret
API key for the control plane (required when auth is on)
KYA_HOSTdefault ide
Dual-plane host tag: ide (authoring) or runtime (production)
