Getting started with Skate

[bashbunni]

Hi there! So I start using skate today and I found it super useful, I been
reading the docs, and for what I understand skate manage 2 databases one in
our computer and the other in charm.sh.

The one in our computer is not encrypted and works as an fast and easy way to
retrieve keys and values.

The one on the charm server is encrypted and the only way to access this
database is by using a ssh key, this key is generated the first time we use
skate sett key value and we can obtain this key using charm backup-keys.

This are my questions:

Do I need to add an extra protection to the database directory to prevent it
to open by someone else?

Setting a key and value adds the command into my history, is it possible
prevent this?

I been searching for more examples about how to use it properly, If you know
about an article or blog please let me know.

If you read this I just want to thank you for taking the time to do it.

• fishsticksnom (in Discord)

[bashbunni]

Hi @fishsticksnom,

Thanks for using Skate, it's great to hear you're enjoying it so far.

Let me give some context about Skate. Skate is a single database built on Charm KV that is end-to-end encrypted, so it is encrypted at rest on all machines in addition to being encrypted in transit.

You can see this by running charm where to see your auth keys and anything else that is tied to your Charm account.

These Charm account keys are generated when you run charm, skate set, or glow stash for the first time.

Do I need to add an extra protection to the database directory to prevent it to open by someone else?

No, this is user-based auth that doesn't provide support for team sharing due to the fact that it is end-to-end encrypted, so you don't need to change anything to ensure you're the only one who can access it. This goes for anything in the Charm Cloud stack including the KV, filestore and encryption modules.

Setting a key and value adds the command into my history, is it possible prevent this?

This would be a setting in your shell, I'm not sure which one you're using, but here's a forum answering this question for bash and sh shells.

I've been searching for more examples about how to use it properly, If you know about an article or blog please let me know.

The use cases vary, I find it helpful for sharing data across devices. I'll also use it in my projects to store my API keys and other tokens instead of having a .env file. I think of it a bit like sticky notes, things I'd like to have handy across devices without needing to look for. It supports blob storage as well so if I have a file I'll want access to as part of my tasks that day (instructions or something) I'll store it in skate. Glow is also a great tool for keeping important files at your fingertips with the stash function.

We have a video on using Charm KV and a short video on Skate