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Forkbench vs Keyway
Keyway is a secrets manager for repositories: a CLI and dashboard that keep values out of .env and inject them into a process you launch.
Updated
Keyway injects secrets into the process you launch so they stay out of .env files. Forkbench's Vault goes further for coding agents: the agent runs the command and gets the result, never the value, and a key pinned to its destination is refused anywhere else. It also locks the job to its folders and shows you every agent live.
Hiding a key from a file is good. Keeping it out of the agent's reach altogether, inside the app where the agent actually runs, is better.
| Forkbench | Keyway | |
|---|---|---|
| Agents locked to your project folders | Yes. The macOS kernel seals off the rest of your home folder, per Thread | Not part of it |
| API keys the agent never sees | Yes. The Vault runs the command and the agent only gets the result | Injected as environment variables into the launched process |
| Every agent at a glance | Yes. A live pulse on every tab and the task each agent claimed | Not part of it |
| Know when an agent is stuck | Instantly. It turns red and the Thread counts who needs you | Not part of it |
| Share one job with a teammate or client | Yes. Invite them to one Thread, never your machine | Repository collaborators |
| Human sign-off before work counts as done | Always. Agents report, only you accept | Not part of it |
| Works with | Any CLI agent: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor CLI, Gemini CLI, Aider, your own scripts | Whatever you launch with it |
| Price | Free | Free; Pro 9 EUR/mo; Team 19 EUR/mo |
Why developers pick Forkbench
- The agent never receives a pinned key at all, not even in its environment.
- A kernel folder lock around the same job.
- Live supervision and human sign-off.
- Built into the place your agents already run.
What Keyway does well
- Cross-platform and CI-ready.
- Open source, with cheap team plans.
The verdict
Keyway is built for a fleet of repos and a CI pipeline: team-wide secrets injected into whatever process you launch, with nothing coding-agent-specific about it. Plenty of teams run Keyway for CI and still want their coding agents fenced in locally, which is what Forkbench's Vault, folder lock and live supervision are for, on the machine the agent actually runs on.
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Comparison based on publicly available information, checked on the date above. Spot something out of date? Tell us.