Installation & Setup

This page guides you through installing Amulet and performing your first seal/unseal operations.

If you want to learn about the "Concepts" behind Amulet, such as how it uses memory vs. disk or the Unix philosophy, please check the Concepts & Philosophy page first.

1. Installation

Choose the command for your operating system.

macOS

The easiest way is via Homebrew.

brew tap tsukasa-art/amulet
brew install amulet

Windows

You can install via Scoop.

# Add the bucket and install
scoop bucket add amulet https://github.com/tsukasa-art/scoop-amulet.git
scoop install amulet

Linux (or direct curl install)

Download the binary directly from GitHub Releases and place it in ~/.local/bin.

curl -fL -o ~/.local/bin/amulet \
  https://github.com/tsukasa-art/amulet/releases/latest/download/amulet-linux-x86_64
chmod +x ~/.local/bin/amulet

~/.local/bin is on $PATH by default on most modern Linux distributions. If amulet is not found after install, add export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH" to your shell profile.

2. Seal Your First Secret

Once installed, let's try saving a secret. We'll use the key name MY_SECRET.

# Encrypt and save the value "my-password-123"
echo -n "my-password-123" | amulet seal MY_SECRET --file secrets.vault

You will be prompted for a passphrase. This passphrase is required to retrieve your data later, so don't forget it!

A file named secrets.vault will be created. It's encrypted and safe to commit to GitHub.

3. Retrieve Your Secret (Unseal)

Now, let's get the secret back.

amulet unseal MY_SECRET --file secrets.vault

Enter your passphrase, and my-password-123 will be displayed. You've mastered the basics!

4. Pro Tip: Auto-filling Passphrase

If typing the passphrase every time is tedious, you can set the VAULT_PASSPHRASE environment variable.

export VAULT_PASSPHRASE="your-passphrase"
amulet unseal MY_SECRET --file secrets.vault

Avoid setting the passphrase in environment variables on shared machines or environments where others might see your screen.

Next Steps

Usage Reference: Explore detailed command options.
Deployment: Learn how to run Amulet on servers or Docker.
Security Design: Deep dive into how Amulet protects your data.