Minimalistic ledger and governance toolkit for cold wallets.

quill is a toolkit for interacting with the Network Nervous System's (NNS) canisters using self-custody keys. These keys can be held in an air-gapped computer (a computer that has never connected to the internet) known as a cold wallet. To support cold wallets, quill takes a two-phase approach to sending query/update calls to the IC. In the first phase, quill is used with the various subcommands to generate and sign messages based on user input, without needing access to the internet. In the second phase, the signed message(s) are sent to the IC. Since this requires connection to boundary nodes via the internet, cold-wallet users will transport the signed message(s) from the air-gapped computer (i.e. with a USB stick) to a computer connected with the internet

YOU EXPRESSLY ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT USE OF THIS SOFTWARE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. AUTHORS OF THIS SOFTWARE SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES OF ANY TYPE, WHETHER DIRECT OR INDIRECT.

This will sign a transfer transaction and print to STDOUT:

quill --pem-file <path> transfer <account-id> --amount <amount>

To display the signed message in human-readable form:

quill send --dry-run <path-to-file>

quill could be used on an online computer to send any signed transaction:

quill send <path-to-file>

To get the principal and the account id:

quill --pem-file <path> public-ids

This is how you’d stake/top-up a neuron:

quill --pem-file <path> neuron-stake --amount 2.5 --name 1

Managing the neuron:

quill --pem-file <path> neuron-manage <neuron-id> [OPERATIONS]

All the commands above will generate signed messages, which can be sent on the online machine using the send command from above.

Use pre-built binaries from the latest release.

1. Download the file named quill-macos-x86_64
2. Move the file to your /usr/local/bin directory to make it available system-wide

sudo mv quill-macos-x86_64 /usr/local/bin/quill

3. Make the file executable

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/quill

4. Run quill

quill -h

1. Download the file specific to your system architecture

   1. for x86 download quill-linux-x86_64
   2. for arm32 download quill-arm_32

2. Move the file to your /usr/local/bin directory to make it available system-wide

sudo mv quill-linux-x86_64 /usr/local/bin/quill

3. Make the file executable

chmod +x /usr/local/bin/quill 

4. Run quill

quill -h

1. Download the file named quill-windows-x86_64.exe
2. Double-click the downloaded file to launch the executable

To compile quill run:

1. rustup set profile minimal
2. rustup toolchain install stable --component rustfmt --component clippy
3. rustup override set stable
4. make release

After this, find the binary at target/release/quill.

If you have Nix installed, you can use it to provide an environment for running cargo. Just replace the above build steps with the following:

To compile quill run:

1. nix-shell
2. make release

After this, find the binary at target/release/quill.

If you have access to an Internet Computer testnet (for example, a version the replica binary and NNS running locally), you can target quill at this test network by setting the IC_URL environment variable to the full URL. In addition to that, it is required to use the --insecure-local-dev-mode flag. For example:

IC_URL=https://nnsdapp.dfinity.network quill --insecure-local-dev-mode --pem-file <path> list-neurons

quill is a very critical link in the workflow of the management of valuable assets. quill's code must stay clean, simple, readable and leave no room for ambiguities, so that it can be reviewed and audited by anyone. Hence, if you would like to propose a change, please adhere to the following principles:

1. Be concise and only add functional code.
2. Optimize for correctness, then for readability.
3. Avoid adding dependencies at all costs unless it's completely unreasonable to do so.
4. Every new feature (+ a test) is proposed only after it was tested on real wallets.
5. Increment the last digit of the crate version whenever the functionality scope changes.

Originally forked from the SDK.