DID CLI wallet (@interop/did-cli)

A command line client for managing DIDs, VCs, zCaps, and corresponding cryptographic key pairs, written in Typescript.

Table of Contents

• Background
• Install
• Usage
• Contribute
• License

Background

Install

Usage

Help is available with the --help/-h command line option:

./did -h
./did COMMAND -h

Key Management

Create a key pair

Generate a random Ed25519 key pair (ed25519 is the default type):

./did key create

If you'd like to also generate a secret key seed (to help deterministically generate the same key pair in the future), pass in the --with-seed flag:

./did key create --with-seed
{
  "secretKeySeed": "z1AXVyT6G1Qk3E9cMPkDYY6wVRpZjVGWAZ3TfrAgFZkX6bv",
  "keyPair": {
    "@context": "https://w3id.org/security/multikey/v1",
    "type": "Multikey",
    "publicKeyMultibase": "z6MkrLBubwzwEvwmsyEKd2kJ6pt91E6MHdf3EeQMnCsdX2hM",
    "secretKeyMultibase": "zruzykbtvWUgV8Tp1LKVEuTmywLEa75qHsvWRVarVhdgHiCgiMYTSDXTavJVh47Cwes4mKgdAY5PTizbRvHXcA7XcLF"
  }
}

Generate a deterministic key pair by setting the SECRET_KEY_SEED environment variable to a multibase-encoded seed (e.g. from @digitalcredentials/bnid):

SECRET_KEY_SEED=z1AXVyT6G1Qk3E9cMPkDYY6wVRpZjVGWAZ3TfrAgFZkX6bv ./did key create
{
  "@context": "https://w3id.org/security/multikey/v1",
  "type": "Multikey",
  "publicKeyMultibase": "z6MkrLBubwzwEvwmsyEKd2kJ6pt91E6MHdf3EeQMnCsdX2hM",
  "secretKeyMultibase": "zruzykbtvWUgV8Tp1LKVEuTmywLEa75qHsvWRVarVhdgHiCgiMYTSDXTavJVh47Cwes4mKgdAY5PTizbRvHXcA7XcLF"
}

Specify an explicit key type with --type (defaults to ed25519):

SECRET_KEY_SEED=z1Aaj5A4UCsd... ./did key create --type ed25519

Output is a JSON-LD Multikey document with both the public and secret key in multibase encoding:

{
  "@context": "https://w3id.org/security/multikey/v1",
  "type": "Multikey",
  "publicKeyMultibase": "z6Mk...",
  "secretKeyMultibase": "zrv..."
}

DID Management

Create a DID

Generate a random Ed25519 did:key DID (method defaults to key):

./did id create
{
  "id": "did:key:z6Mkr...",
  "didDocument": { ... }
}

Or pass the method explicitly:

./did id create key

To also include the secret key seed in the output (useful for re-deriving the same DID later), pass --with-seed:

./did id create --with-seed
{
  "id": "did:key:z6MkrLBubwzwEvwmsyEKd2kJ6pt91E6MHdf3EeQMnCsdX2hM",
  "secretKeySeed": "z1AXVyT6G1Qk3E9cMPkDYY6wVRpZjVGWAZ3TfrAgFZkX6bv",
  "didDocument": {
    "@context": [ ... ],
    "id": "did:key:z6MkrLBubwzwEvwmsyEKd2kJ6pt91E6MHdf3EeQMnCsdX2hM",
    "verificationMethod": [ ... ],
    ...
  }
}

Generate a deterministic DID by setting the SECRET_KEY_SEED environment variable to a multibase-encoded seed (e.g. from @digitalcredentials/bnid):

SECRET_KEY_SEED=z1AXVyT6G1Qk3E9cMPkDYY6wVRpZjVGWAZ3TfrAgFZkX6bv ./did id create

Save the DID document and key material to local storage with --save (written to ~/.dids/ by default, or $DIDS_DIR if set):

./did id create --save
DID saved to /home/user/.dids/key/did:key:z6Mkr....json
{
  "id": "did:key:z6Mkr...",
  "didDocument": { ... }
}

Contribute

PRs accepted.

If editing the Readme, please conform to the standard-readme specification.

License

MIT © 2026 Interop Alliance