Interactive Studio

tvault studio is a full-screen terminal UI for your vault. It is the human surface that sits alongside the CLI and the MCP server — a place to see what is in the vault, filter keys, reveal a value on demand, and (when you opt in) make audited edits without leaving the terminal.

It is read-only by default: with no flags, a stray keystroke cannot change anything. The only decryption the studio performs is the on-demand reveal, which is audited exactly like tvault get.

tvault studio                 # read-only browser
tvault studio --rw            # enable audited in-app new / edit / delete
tvault studio webapp          # open straight into a project

The command is also available as browse and ui; both are kept aliases for the same UI:

tvault browse
tvault ui

Needs a TTY

The studio requires an interactive terminal. It will not run when stdin/stdout is piped or redirected. For non-interactive use (scripts, CI, agents) use the CLI or MCP instead.

The four panes

The studio is divided into four panes. Move between them with the arrow keys, h/l (vim), the number keys 1–4, tab/shift+tab to cycle, or the mouse.

#	Pane	What it shows
1	Status	Vault state (locked/unlocked), the active project, counts, and the current studio mode.
2	Projects	All projects. Press enter to open the selected project; its secrets load into the secrets pane.
3	Secrets	Keys in the active project, masked. This is where you filter, reveal, copy, and (with --rw) edit.
4	Audit	The most recent audit entries (reveals, edits, unlocks). Size it with --audit-limit.

Light and dark terminal themes are auto-detected, so the studio fits your existing color scheme.

Keybindings

Press ? inside the studio for the in-app cheat sheet, or run tvault help studio for the full reference.

Navigation

Key	Action
↑ / k, ↓ / j	Move selection up / down
← / h, → / l	Previous / next pane
1 2 3 4	Jump to status / projects / secrets / audit
tab / shift+tab	Cycle panes forward / back
enter	Open the selected project
mouse	Click a pane or row to select it

Working with secrets

Key	Action
/	Filter keys live as you type
r	Reveal the selected value (audited)
R	Reveal all values in the current project (audited)
c	Copy the selected value to the clipboard
esc	Re-mask / go back / clear the filter
u	Unlock the vault in-app (prompts for your passphrase)
L	Lock the vault
^r	Reload data from disk
^l	Force a redraw
q / ^c	Quit

When a secret is showing, the studio paints it in a warm amber accent, so the revealed state is never silent or ambiguous.

Filter, then reveal

/ filters on the key name only and never decrypts. Narrow the list first, then press r on the one key you actually need — that keeps the audit log tight and your screen clean.

The reveal security model

Revealed plaintext lives only in memory, and only for as long as you are looking at it. The studio wipes revealed values on every transition that could leave a secret on screen:

• esc (re-mask)
• changing panes
• locking the vault (L)
• reloading (^r)
• quitting (q)

Each r / R reveal is written to the audit log just like a tvault get, so a browse session leaves the same trail as scripted access. There is no setting that turns auditing off.

Reveal is a real decryption

r and R decrypt the value and put plaintext on your screen, and c puts it on the clipboard. Treat a revealed studio the same way you would treat a terminal with tvault get output in the scrollback — over a shared screen, an SSH session, or a recorded demo it is just as exposed.

Editing in the studio (--rw)

By default the studio cannot write. Pass --rw to enable in-app mutations:

tvault studio --rw

In --rw mode the secrets pane gains three actions:

Key	Action
n	New secret (add a key/value to the active project)
e	Edit the selected secret's value
d	Delete the selected secret

These reuse the exact same code path as the CLI — vault.SetSecret / vault.DeleteSecret — so they enforce the same rules and produce the same audit records as tvault set / tvault delete. As on the CLI, editing a value archives the prior version (see Versioning), and deleting a key purges that key's history. Prefilling the edit field reveals the current value, which is audited as a read.

What stays in the CLI

The studio edits values; it does not manage the vault's structure. Project create/delete, secret rotation, key rotation, and sharing stay in the CLI. See Projects, Key management, and Sharing.

Flags

Flag	Default	Description
[project]	active project	Positional arg: open straight into this project.
--rw	off	Enable audited in-app new / edit / delete. Omit it to stay read-only.
--single-pane	off	Single-pane layout for small terminals.
--no-anim	off	Disable animations (good for SSH, screen/tmux, and screen readers). Also set via TVAULT_NO_ANIM.
--audit-limit <N>	100	How many recent audit entries to load into the audit pane.

The six global persistent flags work here too: --config <file>, --vault <dir>, -p/--project <name>, --json, -v/--verbose, and --no-agent. -h/--help is available on every command.

# Small terminal, single pane, no animations
tvault studio --single-pane --no-anim

# Open the staging project with a deeper audit window
tvault studio staging --audit-limit 200

SSH and accessibility

On a remote shell, inside tmux/screen, or with a screen reader, run with --no-anim (or export TVAULT_NO_ANIM=1) for a calmer, redraw-friendly UI.

Configuration defaults

The optional browse: block in ~/.tvault/config.yaml supplies studio defaults. The block keeps the name browse for backwards compatibility with the old command name — it configures studio. Explicit CLI flags always win over these values.

# ~/.tvault/config.yaml
browse:
  no_anim: true        # default --no-anim
  single_pane: false   # default --single-pane
  audit_limit: 200     # default --audit-limit

A missing config file is fine. A malformed one is flagged by tvault doctor. See Configuration for the full file reference.

See also

• The local agent — keep the vault unlocked so reveals skip the prompt
• Versioning & rollback — every --rw edit archives the prior value
• Security model — the threat model behind reveal, audit, and redaction
• CLI reference — the scriptable surface for everything the studio shows