Capability System

VeloxKit gates access to native APIs behind capabilities — explicit permissions declared in veloxkit.config.ts.

Why capabilities exist

A VeloxKit app can read files, query databases, make network requests, and access the OS keychain. These are powerful APIs. Capabilities ensure:

1. No surprise access — an app can't silently exfiltrate files
2. Auditable permissions — the config is the source of truth
3. Principle of least privilege — declare only what you need

Declaring capabilities

// veloxkit.config.ts
import { defineConfig } from 'veloxkit'
 
export default defineConfig({
  name: 'my-app',
  capabilities: [
    'fs',       // file system read/write
    'db',       // SQLite
    'network',  // fetch, WebSocket, mDNS
    'clipboard',
  ],
})

What happens without a capability

export default defineConfig({
  capabilities: [
    "db",
  ],
})

[{ id: 1, title: 'My note', body: '...' }, ...]

The error is thrown at the first call to a gated API, not at build time.

Available capabilities

Capability scoping (coming in v0.4)

Future versions will support per-path and per-origin scoping:

capabilities: [
  { name: 'fs', paths: ['~/Documents/my-app/**'] },
  { name: 'network', origins: ['https://api.myservice.com'] },
]

This is tracked in GitHub issue #142 (opens in a new tab).