General documentation index: docs/DOCUMENTATION.md. API and capability setup (full tree): viki/SECURITY_docs/SETUP.md (available in the implementation checkout).

Security fixes are applied to the most recent minor release line.

Please do not open a public GitHub issue for security vulnerabilities.

Use GitHub private vulnerability reporting:

1. Open the Security tab of the Orythix/viki repository
2. Click Report a vulnerability

If you do not have access to the private implementation repo, report via the Security tab on Orythix/VIKI-public instead (same Report a vulnerability flow).

• A clear description of the issue and its impact
• Steps to reproduce (or a minimal proof-of-concept)
• Affected version, OS, and any relevant logs (with secrets redacted)

We aim to acknowledge reports within 48 hours and provide a remediation timeline within 7 days of triage. Coordinated disclosure is appreciated; we will credit reporters in the changelog if requested.

VIKI is designed with a defense-in-depth approach:

• Local-first execution — most operations run on-device to minimize external attack surface.
• Action validation — every skill execution is checked by safety.validate_action(skill_name, params) before running. Prohibited patterns and admin-file access are blocked.
• Path sandboxing — file operations (filesystem_skill, dev_tools, whisper, pdf, data_analysis) are restricted to allowed roots (workspace_dir, data_dir).
• Capability gating — high-risk skills (filesystem, shell) require explicit permission and are logged in logs/viki.log.
• API authentication — all REST endpoints require VIKI_API_KEY.
• Secret redaction — model output and logs redact API keys and tokens; user input and skill params are logged via safe_for_log().
• Prompt injection mitigation — incoming prompts are sanitized against a blocklist of jailbreak-style phrases.
• Shell safety — commands containing ;, &&, ||, or | require confirmation. Optional LLM security scan can be enabled via system.security_scan_requests.
• Sandbox principles — shell and system commands are executed within restricted environments where possible.

• Secrets management — never commit .env or operational secrets (VIKI_API_KEY, VIKI_ADMIN_SECRET) to version control. Generate with python -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_urlsafe(32))".
• Default keys are dead — any VIKI_API_KEY value found in old documentation or example files (e.g. the historical REDACTED-OLD-KEY-ROTATE-VIKI_API_KEY placeholder) is invalid. Always generate your own.
• Model origin — only use trusted models from official sources (Ollama / Hugging Face) to mitigate prompt-injection or malicious-weight attacks.
• Log review — periodically review logs/viki.log for unauthorized capability-check attempts.

For setup details, see viki/SECURITY_docs/SETUP.md.

Runbook version: aligned with VIKI v8.0.0 (Industrial). Update this file when default ports, flags, or critical architecture patterns change.