# Relicario — User Guide

Welcome! Relicario is a password manager that keeps your logins, cards, notes, and files
safe — and keeps **you** in control of where they live. This guide is for everyday users:
no programming or cryptography knowledge required.

> **The one-minute version.** Your vault lives in a git repository *you* control (your own
> Gitea or GitHub). The server only ever sees scrambled, unreadable data. To unlock your
> vault you need **two things together**: a **passphrase** you remember, and a **reference
> photo** (an ordinary JPEG you chose, with a secret hidden inside it). Neither one alone can
> open the vault — that's what keeps your secrets yours.

## Start here

New to Relicario? Read these first, in order:

1. **[Getting started](getting-started.md)** — install it, create your first vault, and add your first login (about 10 minutes).
2. **[How Relicario works](concepts.md)** — the two-factor idea, where your data is stored, and the one golden rule.
3. **[Items](items.md)** — the seven kinds of things you can store, and how to add, view, edit, and delete them.

## Everyday tasks

- **[Passwords & generators](passwords-and-generators.md)** — create strong passwords and passphrases, and check how strong they are.
- **[Two-factor codes (TOTP)](totp.md)** — store the rotating 6-digit codes for sites that use authenticator apps.
- **[Attachments & documents](attachments-and-documents.md)** — keep files and scanned documents in your vault.
- **[Organizing your vault](organizing.md)** — groups, tags, favorites, and search.
- **[Sync & backup](sync-and-backup.md)** — use your vault on more than one computer, and back it up safely.
- **[The browser extension](the-browser-extension.md)** — unlock, search, and autofill logins right in Chrome or Firefox.

## Before you need it

- **[Recovery — and its limits](recovery.md)** — how to protect against losing access, and the honest truth about what *cannot* be recovered. **Please read this one early, not after something goes wrong.**
- **[FAQ](faq.md)** — quick answers to common questions.

## For the technically curious

This guide deliberately skips the engineering details. If you want to understand how the
encryption, the hidden-image secret, or the data formats actually work, see the technical
documentation in the repository:

- [`../DESIGN.md`](../DESIGN.md) — the big picture across all the pieces.
- [`../docs/CRYPTO.md`](../docs/CRYPTO.md) — how the two factors become a key, and how data is encrypted.
- [`../docs/SECURITY.md`](../docs/SECURITY.md) — the threat model: what Relicario protects against, and what it doesn't.
- [`../docs/FORMATS.md`](../docs/FORMATS.md) — the on-disk and wire formats.

Relicario is free and open source under the GPL-3.0-or-later license — you're welcome to read,
build, and verify every line.

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**Next:** [Getting started](getting-started.md)