Auths

Decentralized identity for individuals, AI agents, and their organizations.

One identity, multiple devices, Git-native storage.

Install

Homebrew:

brew install auths-dev/auths-cli/auths

Install from source:

cargo install --git https://github.com/auths-dev/auths.git auths_cli

This installs auths, auths-sign, and auths-verify.

Quick Start

1. Initialize your identity (30 seconds)

auths init

Follow the prompts. This creates your cryptographic identity and stores the key securely in your system keychain.

2. See what you created

auths status

Output:

Identity: did:keri:EBf...
Key Alias: controller
Devices: 1 linked

Ready to sign commits.

3. Sign your first commit

Configure Git to use Auths:

auths git setup

Now sign a commit:

git commit -S -m "My first signed commit"

Verify it:

auths verify-commit HEAD

Output:

Commit abc123 is valid
  Signed by: did:keri:EBf...
  Device: did:key:z6Mk...
  Status: VALID

That's it. Your commits are now cryptographically signed with your decentralized identity.

---

What can you do with Auths?

Link multiple devices to one identity

# On your laptop
auths device link --device-did did:key:z6Mk...

# Now both devices can sign as the same identity

Revoke a compromised device

auths device revoke --device-did did:key:z6Mk...

Verify any attestation

auths verify attestation.json

Sync allowed-signers for Git verification

auths signers sync

---

Agent & Workload Identity

Auths treats AI agents and CI/CD runners as first-class identity holders — not borrowers of human credentials.

Give an agent its own identity:

# Create a dedicated agent identity
auths init --profile agent

# Issue a scoped, time-limited attestation from a human to the agent
auths attestation issue \
  --subject did:key:z6MkAgent... \
  --signer-type Agent \
  --capabilities "sign:commit,deploy:staging" \
  --delegated-by did:keri:EHuman... \
  --expires-in 24h

The agent now holds a cryptographic attestation chain traceable back to the human who authorized it. Every action the agent takes is signed under its own key, scoped to only the capabilities it was granted, and verifiable by anyone — offline, without contacting a central authority.

How delegation works: A human creates a signed attestation granting specific capabilities to an agent. The agent can further delegate a subset of those capabilities to sub-agents. Verifiers walk the chain back to the human sponsor. Capabilities can only narrow at each hop, never widen. See the Delegation Guide for a full walkthrough.

Cloud integration via OIDC: The OIDC bridge verifies an agent's attestation chain and issues a standard JWT consumable by AWS STS, GCP Workload Identity, and Azure AD — no cloud provider changes required.

MCP compatibility: Auths attestations serve as the cryptographic identity layer behind MCP's OAuth-based authorization, providing verifiable delegation chains from human principals to AI agents.

---

How it works

Auths stores your identity and device attestations in a Git repository (~/.auths by default). Each device link is a cryptographically signed attestation stored as a Git ref.

• Identity: A did:keri derived from your Ed25519 key
• Devices: did:key identifiers linked via signed attestations
• Keys: Stored in your OS keychain (macOS Keychain, or encrypted file fallback)
• Attestations: Stored in Git refs under refs/auths/

No central server. No blockchain. Just Git and cryptography.

---

Commands

Command	Description
auths init	Initialize identity with guided setup
auths status	Show identity and device overview
auths id show	Display identity details
auths device link	Link a new device
auths device revoke	Revoke a device
auths key list	List stored keys
auths verify	Verify an attestation
auths verify-commit	Verify a signed commit
auths git setup	Configure Git for signing
auths signers sync	Sync allowed-signers from registry
auths signers list	List allowed signers
auths signers add	Add a manual signer

Run auths --help for full documentation.

---

License

Apache 2.0