No passwords-to-servers: the three layers, recovery walkthrough, phone bridge · content/guides/login-and-accounts.md

Login & Accounts — how signing in works here

The founder's ask, answered honestly: no passwords-to-servers, no email resets — so how do you get in, and how do you get back in when the laptop dies?

✓ verified against the live stack, 2026-09-12 — recovery walked end-to-end on a real identity (gsg): init --from-seed → backup → recover --force → byte-identical keys, same fingerprint GKA5-JSWK-ZE, same loopd agent ag_6484a71832, balance and cap intact. Passkey gate per wallet-app v7 (2026-09-11).

The one idea

Nothing you type into a website is your account. Your account is 12 words that never leave you.

There is no "password held on a server" to leak, no "reset link to your email" to intercept. Instead there are three layers, each answering one question:

That is the whole security model. Everything else is detail.

Accounts per device

Identities are per device by design — a second computer gets its own fresh keys; messaging is handle→handle across relays. Two consequences, both deliberate:

• Losing one machine does not touch the others.
• A "new" device is either fresh (new identity) or restored (your 12 words re-grow the same keys, byte for byte — same person, new hardware).

# the second-computer pattern from the test kit (content/testkit.md):
python3 qalchat/qalchat.py init alice-2nd --relays http://100.111.199.12:8840

Recovery walkthrough — device lost, 12 words, everything returns

This is the exact sequence run on 2026-09-12 (handle gsg). Your wallet does the same with the "Restore from seed" onboarding option.

1. New device, install, choose Restore from seed, type the words (or the CLI):

python3 qalchat/qalchat.py recover gsg "sibling tumble distance frost tooth flat …"

If an old copy of the identity exists on that machine, the command refuses until you add --force — and it archives the old files first (nothing is ever deleted):

error: identity 'gsg' already exists — recovering over it needs --force
       (the old files are archived, never deleted)
-- force run:
  prior device state archived → qalchat/data/archive/recover_1789199266438
  identity 'gsg' RECOVERED from seed (qal-derivation-v1, fingerprint 3224a1f378d9a453)
    — keys are byte-identical to the ones this phrase originally minted

2. Money comes back automatically. Your loopd (ledger) agent secret is also a leaf of the same seed, so recovery re-presents the same credential:

loopd agent ag_6484a71832 re-bound by handle (already — balance and cap travel with the agent)

Same agent id, same balance, same daily cap. A different secret for a claimed handle is refused (409) — impostors fail loudly, proven in the seedkit money test.

3. Conversations re-sync from the relay's audit trail — every replayed envelope is signature-checked and decryption-verified; any doubt aborts that conversation (fail-closed, never fail-open). Honest scope: the seed restores keys, not device-local message history — past sealed traffic stays sealed exactly as before.

4. You're you again. Same fingerprint, same qoll-code (GKA5-JSWK-ZE → qoll-gka5-js), same identity everywhere.

Recovery for agents and devices is even easier — they're never root. Every agent and device names a controller (a human/org DID); controllers re-issue or revoke them at will. python3 qalid/qalid.py recover-plan <did> prints the exact commands for your type. The only unrecoverable loss is a human's seed phrase with no backup — that is why step 2 of getting started is pen and paper.

The phone bridge token model

The phone (qalbridge) does not hold your keys at all. It is a token-gated window onto a bridge handle that lives on your machine:

• You open http://<tailscale-ip>:8837/phone?t=<token> once; the server mints an HttpOnly session cookie and strips the token from the URL — then you bookmark the clean page.
• The URL only resolves inside your tailnet (WireGuard VPN) — unreachable from the public internet by construction.
• Scope: read transcripts, pull whitelisted files, see balance, send as the bridge handle. No seed on the phone, nothing to lose with the phone.
• Treat the token like a password: anyone with it and tailnet access reads the bridge handle's conversations.

Plain-language security table

Where to see it for real

bash seedkit/test_seed.sh     # 39 assertions: seed → use → destroy device → recover → use again
bash qalchat/test_chat.sh     # 38 assertions stay green after recovery
python3 qalid/qalid.py recover-plan <handle>   # your exact recovery story

Companions: getting-started · digital-identity-login · identity architecture (the master map) · secure ops (passcode doctrine).