safehold

Safehold

Your identity documents, on your machine, shared only when you say so.

What it is

Safehold is a local MCP server that stores passports, visas, driving licences, and other identity documents. When an AI agent needs your passport number to book a flight, it asks Safehold. You see what's being requested and why, then approve or deny. Nothing leaves your device.

Why it exists

Your identity data is scattered across dozens of services you don't control: banks, airlines, government portals, SaaS products. Each one holds a copy and decides for itself how to store it, whether to sell it, and how long it'll stick around. AI agents make this worse. Anything an agent can access, every API it touches can reach too.

Safehold is the alternative. The agent gets a field value. You get a consent prompt instead of a privacy policy. Your files stay where they are.

Open source, so none of this requires trust.

How it works

Safehold runs as a stdio MCP server. Documents go into ~/.safehold/vault/ as individual encrypted files. Every retrieval is logged to ~/.safehold/access-log.enc.

Encryption is XChaCha20-Poly1305 via @noble/ciphers, audited by Cure53, no external dependencies. On first run a 32-byte key is written to ~/.safehold/master.key (mode 0600).

Other MCP clients can request specific fields from your documents. You control what gets shared, every time.

Tools (v1)

Tool	Description
add_document	Add a document to the vault
list_documents	List stored documents (metadata only)
update_document	Update fields on an existing document
delete_document	Permanently delete a document
get_passport	Retrieve specific fields from a passport
get_national_id	Retrieve specific fields from a national ID
get_driving_license	Retrieve specific fields from a driving licence
get_visa	Retrieve specific fields from a visa
get_photo	Retrieve a stored photo (passport style, selfie, or signature)
get_document	Retrieve fields from any document type
get_access_log	View what was accessed, by which client, and when

Every retrieval tool accepts a purpose parameter. That purpose is shown to you at consent time so you always know why a field is being requested.

Prompts (v1)

Safehold also ships ready-made workflow prompts. These show up as slash commands in MCP clients (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Claude Code, Zed) so common tasks don't have to be re-prompted from scratch.

Prompt	Description
onboard_document	Guided intake to add or update a passport, national ID, driving licence, or visa
travel_preflight	Check passport and visa validity for an upcoming trip
selective_share	Share the minimum a service actually needs, with an explicit consent purpose
expiry_audit	Surface anything expiring soon (metadata only, no consent prompts)

Prompts don't access your data themselves. They tell the calling agent which Safehold tools to call, in what order, and with what purpose. Every retrieval still goes through the normal consent flow.

Quick Install

Requires Node.js >=20. No build step.

Most clients use the same JSON config — just the file path differs:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "safehold": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "safehold@latest"]
    }
  }
}

Client	Config file
Claude Desktop (macOS)	~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Claude Desktop (Windows)	%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Cursor (project)	.cursor/mcp.json
Cursor (global)	~/.cursor/mcp.json
Windsurf	~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json
Amazon Q Developer (global)	~/.aws/amazonq/mcp.json
Amazon Q Developer (project)	.amazonq/mcp.json

Clients with slightly different config formats:

Claude Code (CLI)

claude mcp add safehold npx -- -y safehold@latest

VS Code (GitHub Copilot) — uses "servers" key, enable Agent mode in Copilot Chat. Edit .vscode/mcp.json (project) or ~/Library/Application Support/Code/User/mcp.json (global, macOS):

{
  "servers": {
    "safehold": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "safehold@latest"]
    }
  }
}

Zed — uses "context_servers" key in ~/.config/zed/settings.json:

{
  "context_servers": {
    "safehold": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "safehold@latest"]
    }
  }
}

OpenAI Codex CLI — TOML format in ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.safehold]
command = "npx"
args = ["-y", "safehold@latest"]

Continue.dev — create .continue/mcpServers/safehold.json (enable Agent mode):

{
  "command": "npx",
  "args": ["-y", "safehold@latest"]
}

Hermes (Nous Research) — YAML format in ~/.hermes/config.yaml:

mcp_servers:
  safehold:
    command: npx
    args: ["-y", "safehold@latest"]

OpenClaw — uses "servers" key in ~/.openclaw/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "safehold": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "safehold@latest"]
    }
  }
}

Roadmap

• get_travel_authorization - ESTA, eTA, UK ETA, and similar
• get_vaccination_certificate - international vaccination records
• get_residency_permit - BRP, Green Card, and equivalents
• get_birth_certificate
• get_tax_id - NI number, SSN, TFN, and equivalents
• get_proof_of_address - utility bills, bank letters
• get_travel_insurance

Development

npm install
npm test          # run tests
npm run typecheck # type check
npm run build     # compile to dist/
npm run dev       # run directly with tsx (no build step)

Releasing

npm version patch   # bug fix  (0.1.0 → 0.1.1)
npm version minor   # feature  (0.1.0 → 0.2.0)
npm version major   # breaking (0.1.0 → 1.0.0)

Checks that you're on a clean, up-to-date main branch, bumps the version, commits, tags, and pushes. CI publishes to npm.

Built by

Spacetime Technology