This product was not featured by Product Hunt yet. It will not be visible on their landing page and won't be ranked (cannot win product of the day regardless of upvotes).
Bots scrape public repos faster than you can click Undo. One accidental commit and your AWS key, GitHub token, or database password is already gone. Dotward catches it before it leaves your machine — at the terminal, at the commit line, before it ever reaches GitHub. Local vault, fully offline. No cloud, no account, no telemetry. All in a one time buy, no subscription hassle.
Hey PH! 👋 Builder here — happy to do a full technical breakdown.
What Dotward actually is:
A local-first encrypted secret manager for developers. Your `.env` files, API keys, and credentials never leave your machine unencrypted — ever.
The stack
- Electron + Flask — UI is served by a local Flask server (Python) running as a compiled binary inside the app. No Node.js backend, no Electron IPC for data — Flask handles all vault logic
- AES-256-GCM encryption— every secret is encrypted at rest with a master password you set. The encryption key never touches disk
- SQLite — local database, fully encrypted payload storage
Core features:
Project-based vault— organize secrets by project, set expiry dates, get notified before they expire
- Lock/unlock flow — vault locks on app close, requires master password to re-open
- Security dashboard — scans your vault for weak, expired, or at-risk credentials
- Secret scanner — scans your codebase for accidentally committed secrets using Shannon entropy + 19 regex patterns for known credential formats (AWS keys, JWT tokens, Stripe keys, etc.)
Pre-commit hook installer — one command wires the scanner into your git workflow so secrets never make it into a commit
- CLI — `dotward scan`, `dotward scan --all`, `dotward install-hook` — works standalone, zero dependency on the running app
Security model
- Master key derived from password, never stored
- All vault data encrypted before writing to SQLite
- Local-only — no cloud sync, no telemetry, no accounts
- Auto-lock on inactivity
Auto-updates:
- `electron-updater` with GitHub Releases as the update server
- Downloads silently in background, prompts on completion
- macOS: ZIP-based delta updates via `latest-mac.yml`
- Windows: NSIS `oneClick` installer, force-kills all processes before replacing binaries to prevent file lock errors
Why we built it
Leaked `.env` files are one of the most common causes of security breaches for indie devs and small teams. Every existing solution either requires cloud storage or is too complex to set up. Dotward is local, simple, and actually catches secrets before they escape.
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About Dotward v1.8 on Product Hunt
“Audit secrets locally. No cloud. No leaks. Ever.”
Dotward v1.8 was submitted on Product Hunt and earned 0 upvotes and 1 comments, placing #159 on the daily leaderboard. Bots scrape public repos faster than you can click Undo. One accidental commit and your AWS key, GitHub token, or database password is already gone. Dotward catches it before it leaves your machine — at the terminal, at the commit line, before it ever reaches GitHub. Local vault, fully offline. No cloud, no account, no telemetry. All in a one time buy, no subscription hassle.
Dotward v1.8 was featured in Developer Tools (515k followers), GitHub (41.3k followers) and Tech (626.9k followers) on Product Hunt. Together, these topics include over 263.1k products, making this a competitive space to launch in.
Who hunted Dotward v1.8?
Dotward v1.8 was hunted by Anuvrat Chandra. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
Want to see how Dotward v1.8 stacked up against nearby launches in real time? Check out the live launch dashboard for upvote speed charts, proximity comparisons, and more analytics.
Anuvrat Chandra