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:

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

Everyday tasks

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

Before you need it

Recovery — and its limits — 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 — 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 — the big picture across all the pieces.
../docs/CRYPTO.md — how the two factors become a key, and how data is encrypted.
../docs/SECURITY.md — the threat model: what Relicario protects against, and what it doesn't.
../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.

Next: Getting started