V Vant Docs

Ghost in the Machine - Stego Bootstrapping

Boot Vant from zero local state by fetching a stego image. The agent becomes truly transient - no .env file needed if config is embedded in the image!

How It Works

  1. Fetch: Load PNG from URL or local file
  2. Decode: Extract brain from steganographic data
  3. Extract: Get embedded config (no tokens!)
  4. Resume: Load brain state, continue session

CLI Usage

# From GitHub raw URL
vant boot --image=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/user/repo/main/brain.png

# From local file
vant boot --image=./brain.png

# Decrypt password
vant boot --image=./brain.png --decrypt=secret123

Security

Check Description  
HTTPS Required for remote URLs
No internal Blocks localhost, 127.x, 10.x, 192.168.x
No tokens Config must be set separately
Path traversal Blocked in local paths

Embedded Config

Save non-sensitive config in brain:

const brain = require('vant').storage.get('brain');

brain.embedConfig({
    GITHUB_REPO: 'owner/repo',
    GITHUB_BRANCH: 'main'
});

Then encode as stego image. On boot, config is extracted automatically.

Use Cases

  1. Transient deployments: No local state needed
  2. Emergency recovery: Boot from public URL
  3. Cross-account migration: Move agent between accounts
  4. Zero-config startup: Just share an image URL

Full Example

# 1. Create brain image (with embedded config)
node bin/stego.js snapshot --input=avatar.png --output=brain.png

# 2. Upload brain.png to GitHub/GitLab/etc
# 3. Share raw URL

# 4. On new machine (zero local state):
vant boot --image=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/user/repo/main/brain.png

# Vant resumes with full brain state!

Caveats

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