Identity & Contacts

Your cryptographic identity, contact book, and trust verification.

What is an Identity?

An identity in Krillnotes is a cryptographic keypair (Ed25519) that represents you. It’s used to:

Sign every operation you make, so peers can verify authorship
Encrypt sync data end-to-end between devices and peers
Bind workspaces to an owner

Identities are stored locally, protected by a passphrase (derived with Argon2id). They never leave your device unless you explicitly export them.

Identity Manager

Open File → Manage Identities to see all your identities.

Identity Manager dialog listing identities with display names, fingerprints, and last-used timestamps

Creating an Identity

Click + Create Identity to generate a new keypair.

Create Identity dialog with Display Name and Passphrase fields

Enter a display name (this is declarative — peers see it but it has no security meaning) and a passphrase to protect the identity. The passphrase is used to encrypt the private key on disk.

Unlocking and Locking

Identities must be unlocked before they can be used. When you open a workspace bound to a locked identity, you’ll be prompted for the passphrase.

Unlock Identity dialog with passphrase prompt and identity name

Once unlocked, the identity stays active for the session. All workspaces bound to that identity become available. You can lock an identity manually from the Identity Manager.

Managing Identities

Select an identity in the Identity Manager to see its actions:

Identity row expanded showing: Rename, Change Passphrase, Export Identity, and the public key / fingerprint display

Rename — change the display name
Change Passphrase — set a new passphrase (requires the current one)
Export Identity — save the identity as a .swarmid file for backup or transfer to another device
Public key & fingerprint — displayed for verification with peers

Exporting an identity

Click Export Identity to save a .swarmid file. This file contains your full keypair, encrypted with your passphrase.

Use this to back up your identity or restore it on another machine. You’ll need the passphrase to import it.

Contact Book

The contact book stores information about peers you interact with. Each identity has its own encrypted contact book.

Open the contact book from the Identity Manager or from File → Manage Identities → Contacts.

Contact Book dialog showing contacts with declared names, local names, fingerprints, and trust levels

Adding a contact

Click + Add Contact to add someone.

Add Contact dialog with fields for pasting a public key or importing from a .swarmid file

You can add a contact by:

Pasting their public key — if they’ve shared it with you
Importing from a .swarmid file — if they’ve sent you their identity export

Editing a contact

Edit Contact dialog showing the local name field and trust level dropdown with TOFU, CodeVerified, Vouched, VerifiedInPerson options

Local name — your own label for this person (not visible to them)
Notes — private annotations about the contact
Trust level — how you’ve verified this person’s identity

Trust Levels

Level	Meaning
TOFU	Trust On First Use — the default when you first encounter a peer
CodeVerified	You’ve compared fingerprints or public keys digitally
Vouched	A mutually trusted third party vouches for this person
VerifiedInPerson	You’ve verified the fingerprint face-to-face — the highest level of trust

Trust levels are local to your contact book — they help you make decisions about sharing and permissions but are not communicated to peers.