CLI Key Formats

The envelope CLI uses UR-encoded deterministic CBOR for keys. The two bundle types most users see are ur:crypto-prvkeys and ur:crypto-pubkeys.

Key Bundles

PrivateKeys is encoded as ur:crypto-prvkeys with CBOR tag 40013. It contains two keys:

• A signing private key, encoded with CBOR tag 40021
• An encapsulation private key, usually X25519

PublicKeys is encoded as ur:crypto-pubkeys with CBOR tag 40017. It also contains two keys:

• A signing public key, encoded with CBOR tag 40022
• An encapsulation public key, usually X25519

The CLI defaults to Schnorr signing and X25519 encapsulation for ordinary generated keypairs:

PRVKEYS=$(envelope generate prvkeys)
PUBKEYS=$(envelope generate pubkeys "$PRVKEYS")

envelope generate pubkeys derives the public bundle from the private bundle. It does not need access to a separate public key file.

Inspecting Key URs

Wrap the UR as an envelope subject and format it to see the decoded structure:

PRVKEYS=ur:crypto-prvkeys/lftansgohdcxrnndemlygabamwnblbttsrpfztbksfwybtskbavlvtdnpsrkmeknkpiybbfhonhdtansgehdcxbsgrcfdlteseresbhfiyjkhnctbagamdbyvsgmmdltuttysgnbbnpmamtphswkjsztjszemu
envelope subject type ur "$PRVKEYS" | envelope format

PrivateKeys(7b8fdc6e, SigningPrivateKey(eda4f47a, SchnorrPrivateKey(3a2297f7)), EncapsulationPrivateKey(d1dcb383, X25519PrivateKey(d1dcb383)))

Then derive and inspect the public bundle:

PUBKEYS=$(envelope generate pubkeys "$PRVKEYS")
envelope subject type ur "$PUBKEYS" | envelope format

PublicKeys(1c3eb3ea, SigningPublicKey(b82350cf, SchnorrPublicKey(d263d0fa)), EncapsulationPublicKey(b5b44154, X25519PublicKey(b5b44154)))

The short hexadecimal values in formatted output are object references, not the full key bytes.

Signing Key Encodings

Signing keys are carried inside the key bundles. The signing key CBOR payload depends on the signing scheme:

Scheme	Private payload	Public payload
Schnorr	32-byte byte string	32-byte x-only public key byte string
ECDSA/secp256k1	Array [1, bytes] where bytes is the 32-byte private key	Array [1, bytes] where bytes is the 33-byte compressed public key
Ed25519	Array [2, bytes] where bytes is the 32-byte private key	Array [2, bytes] where bytes is the 32-byte public key
SSH	Tagged OpenSSH text	Tagged OpenSSH public key text

For ECDSA interoperability, the important details are the discriminator 1, the 32-byte secp256k1 private key, and the 33-byte compressed secp256k1 public key.

Native Formats

The CLI can import OpenSSH private keys, public keys, and signatures:

envelope import < ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
envelope import "ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAA..."

The CLI can export SSH signing private keys, SSH signing public keys, PublicKeys bundles that contain SSH public keys, and SSH signatures:

envelope export "$SSH_PRVKEY_UR"
envelope export "$SSH_PUBKEY_UR"

This SSH support is separate from the lower-level ECDSA/secp256k1 encoding described above. The CLI does not currently import or export non-SSH ECDSA keys as native JWK, PEM, or DER files; those keys are represented directly in the UR CBOR structure.