Tokens, connections and sign-ins

Three kinds of credential let software act for you, and all of them are listed on your Tokens page, where you can revoke any of them.

The three kinds

	OAuth connection	Access token	CLI sign-in
For	MCP clients that support sign-in: Claude Code, Claude.ai, ChatGPT	MCP clients that can only send a header: Cursor, VS Code, scripts, headless agents	the `reliquary` CLI on one computer
Made by	signing in from the client and choosing Allow	Tokens, Create token in the web app	`reliquary login` and choosing Allow
Reaches	the MCP endpoint	the MCP endpoint	the env API only: variable values, never files
Vaults	all yours, or the ones you tick	all yours, or the ones you tick	all yours, or the ones you tick
Access	read only, or read and write	read only, or read and write	reads values; optionally sends a `.env` for approval
Lifetime	1-hour access tokens, refreshed by the client; the grant lasts at most a year	7 days to a year, fixed when made	1-hour access tokens, refreshed by the CLI; at most a year
Shown as	the client's name, "from" its site	the name you gave it	"Reliquary CLI"

OAuth connections and CLI sign-ins are made by the web app at https://app.reliquary.redmage.cc, the issuer your client checks. The CLI uses that server unless you name another with --server.

All three act as you, minus the ceiling. A connection or token can never do more than your role allows in a vault.

Prefer OAuth where the client supports it

With OAuth there is no secret to copy: the client signs in through your browser and keeps its own refreshed tokens. Use an access token only for clients without sign-in, and keep it out of chats and config files that an agent can read: read it from an environment variable or a password prompt. See Connect Cursor and Connect VS Code.

Scope is fixed

A token's or connection's vaults and access are fixed when it is made. To change them, revoke it and make another. "All my vaults" includes vaults you join later; ticking vaults limits it to those.

Revoking

Revoke any of them on the Tokens page; the next request it makes is refused. Only you can revoke your own, in person: no agent, token or client can revoke one (an OAuth client can still end its own grant). A vault owner can also cut a member's connection off from their vault on Members, without touching the member's other vaults.

When you leave a vault, or are removed, tokens that reached only that vault are revoked, and the vault drops out of tokens that reached several.

If a token leaked, see Rotate a leaked token.

What the Tokens page shows

Each entry shows its name, vaults, access, when it was last used and by which client (the name the client reports), and when it expires. Tokens themselves are stored only as hashes: a new token is shown once, when you create it, and never again.