Recovery & Backup

Cipher provides local file-based backup of your keys and policies, plus two ways to recover an identity key.

Back up keys and policies

Export your keys and policies to a JSON backup file:

mdstn-cipher backup -o mybackup.json

If you omit --output, the file defaults to cipher-backup-YYYYMMDD.json. Store the backup somewhere safe — anyone with it can import your keys.

Restore from a backup

mdstn-cipher restore mybackup.json --force

--force overwrites existing keys and policies; omit it to avoid clobbering current state.

Recover an identity key

From a server backup

If your key was backed up to a Cipher server, recover it by ID:

mdstn-cipher recover from-server --key-id abc123

From a BIP39 mnemonic

Recover an identity key from its mnemonic phrase (you’ll be prompted to enter the words):

mdstn-cipher recover from-mnemonic