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quill generate

Generate a mnemonic seed phrase and generate or recover PEM.

Basic usage

The basic syntax for running quill generate commands is:

quill generate [option]

Flags

FlagDescription
-h, --helpDisplays usage information.
--overwrite-pem-fileOverwrite any existing PEM file
--overwrite-seed-fileOverwrite any existing seed file.

Options

OptionDescription
--pem-file <PEM_FILE>File to write the PEM to.
--phrase <PHRASE>A seed phrase in quotes to use to generate the PEM file.
--seed-file <SEED_FILE>File to write the seed phrase to [default: seed.txt].
--words <WORDS>Number of words: 12 or 24 [default: 12].

Examples

The quill generate command has two primary uses - generating a new key, or recovering a key from a seed phrase.

To generate a new key, and output it to a PEM file:

quill generate --pem-file identity.pem

This will generate a new key that you can use to sign IC transactions with quill, or any other IC tool that supports secp256k1, like dfx. It will also output a seed.txt file containing a seed phrase which can be used to recover this key - write it down in a safe place!

To recover a key from a seed phrase stored in phrase.txt:

quill generate --phrase "$(< phrase.txt)" --pem-file identity.pem

Remarks

Most quill commands take --pem-file and --seed-file parameters, for the key used to sign the messages. Only one of these parameters is needed at a time.