APM
Advanced Password Manager

APM is a professional-grade, zero-knowledge command-line interface (CLI) for managing high-sensitivity credentials. Engineered for cryptographic performance and organizational scalability, it features a dual-engine architecture supporting both individual privacy and team-based collaboration.

Table of Contents

• Table of Contents
• 1. Security Architecture
  • 1.1 Key Derivation: Argon2id
  • 1.2 Authenticated Encryption: AES-256-GCM and XChaCha20-Poly1305
  • 1.3 Secure Recovery & Identity Verification
  • 1.4 Threat Model Summary
• 2. Core Technical Specifications
  • 2.1 Performance Profiles
• 3. Comprehensive Command Glossary
  • 3.1 Personal Edition (pm)
• 4. MCP Server (Model Context Protocol)
  • 4.1 Configuration Guide
    • For Claude Desktop
    • For Cursor / Windsurf / Others
• 5. Team Edition (pm-team)
• 6. Supported Secret Types
• 7. Plugin Architecture
• 8. Policy Engine & Compliance
• 9. Installation and Deployment
  • 9.1 One-Command Install
  • 9.2 Build from Source
  • 9.3 Build Requirements
  • 9.4 Pre-built Binaries
  • 9.5 Installation of Previews and Betas
• 10. Contact & Support
• 11. Development & Contributing
• 12. Cloud Synchronization Matrix
  • 12.1 Cloud Initialization
• 13. AI Usage
• 14. Version System For Contributors

1. Security Architecture

APM uses industry-standard, high-performance cryptographic primitives designed to withstand modern attack vectors, including high-end GPU clusters and dictionary attacks.

1.1 Key Derivation: Argon2id

The master password is never stored. Keys are derived using Argon2id, the winner of the Password Hashing Competition.

• Memory-Hard: Resistant to GPU/ASIC cracking by requiring significant RAM (Default: 64MB, configurable up to 512MB).
• Three-Layer Derivation: Derives 96 bytes of key material, split into distinct 32-byte keys for Encryption, Authentication, and internal Validation.

1.2 Authenticated Encryption: AES-256-GCM and XChaCha20-Poly1305

Confidentiality and integrity are provided by a profile-selected AEAD cipher: AES-256-GCM or XChaCha20-Poly1305.

• Authenticated Encryption: The active AEAD ensures data hasn't been modified.
• Double-Layer Integrity: Extra protection with an HMAC-SHA256 signature over the entire vault file, derived from the master password.
• Vault V4 Format: Includes an unencrypted (but signed) metadata header for identity verification and recovery coordination.
• Nonce Integrity: Every save operation generates a unique nonce to prevent replay attacks and pattern analysis.

1.3 Secure Recovery & Identity Verification

APM features a robust recovery engine designed for zero-knowledge environments.

• Email OTP Verification: 6-digit cryptographically generated email verification codes with strict 15-minute expirations.
• Hashed Validation: Verification codes are compared in hashed form (SHA-256) and never persisted in plaintext.
• Recovery Key Obfuscation: XOR-obfuscation for recovery keys stored in the vault, preventing simple memory dumps from exposing them.
• Quorum Recovery Shares: Optional threshold recovery with trustee shares (pm auth quorum-setup, pm auth quorum-recover).
• WebAuthn Passkeys: Optional passkey recovery factor via local browser ceremony (pm auth passkey register).
• One-Time Recovery Codes: Optional single-use recovery codes (pm auth codes generate).
• DEK Unlocking: Recovery key verification gates DEK unlock, and email OTP plus optional second factors complete identity checks.

1.4 Threat Model Summary

2. Core Technical Specifications

2.1 Performance Profiles

Users can select from pre-defined encryption profiles via pm profile set to balance security and latency, and custom profiles can also change the encryption method.

3. Comprehensive Command Glossary

3.1 Personal Edition (pm)

The personal edition focuses on local-first security and privacy with native multi-cloud synchronization.

4. MCP Server (Model Context Protocol)

APM includes a native MCP server for integration with AI assistants (Claude Desktop, Cursor, etc.). This allows AI agents to read your vault entries, search for credentials, and even retrieve TOTP codes securely if granted permission.

Mutation tools (add_entry, edit_entry, delete_entry) now support transaction guardrails:

• First call creates a preview transaction.
• Commit requires tx_id + approve: true.
• Successful commits return a receipt id.

4.1 Configuration Guide

To use the APM MCP server, you must first generate a dedicated access token:

pm mcp token

Follow the prompts to select permissions (read, secrets, etc.). Once generated, manually add the following configuration to your MCP client.

For Claude Desktop

Add this to your claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apm": {
      "command": "C:\\path\\to\\pm.exe",
      "args": ["mcp", "serve", "--token", "YOUR_TOKEN_HERE"]
    }
  }
}

For Cursor / Windsurf / Others

Add the following manual configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apm": {
      "command": "C:\\path\\to\\pm.exe",
      "args": ["mcp", "serve", "--token", "YOUR_TOKEN_HERE"],
      "capabilities": ["tools"],
      "env": {
        "APM_VAULT_PATH": "C:\\path\\to\\vault.dat"
      }
    }
  }
}

[!IMPORTANT] The MCP server requires an active APM session. You MUST run pm unlock in your terminal before the AI agent can access the vault. You can alternatively provide an ephemeral delegated session using APM_EPHEMERAL_ID.

5. Team Edition (pm-team)

Designed for organizations, the Team Edition facilitates secure credential sharing via a multi-layered RBAC model.

6. Supported Secret Types

APM supports 22 distinct data structures:

1. Passwords | 2. TOTP | 3. Gov IDs | 4. Medical | 5. Travel | 6. Contacts | 7. Wi-Fi | 8. API Keys | 9. Tokens | 10. SSH Keys | 11. SSH Configs | 12. Cloud Creds | 13. K8s | 14. Docker | 15. CI/CD | 16. Notes | 17. Recovery | 18. Certs | 19. Banking | 20. Docs | 21. Software Licenses | 22. Legal

7. Plugin Architecture

APM plugins use the legacy manifest architecture based on plugin.json.

• Local plugins directory: plugins/<name>/plugin.json
• Marketplace flow: pm plugins market, pm plugins install, pm plugins push
• Permissions control: pm plugins access toggles per-plugin permissions on/off
• Examples: examples/plugins/ contains working manifest plugins

8. Policy Engine & Compliance

APM enforces security standards through a flexible, YAML-based policy engine.

• Password Complexity: Validated during pm add.
• Rotation: Tracked via pm health.

9. Installation and Deployment

9.1 One-Command Install

Linux and macOS (latest stable release):

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aaravmaloo/apm/master/scripts/install.sh | bash

Windows PowerShell (latest stable release):

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "iwr Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force
iwr https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aaravmaloo/apm/master/scripts/install.ps1 -UseBasicParsing | iex

Install layout used by the scripts:

• macOS: installs to /usr/local/opt/apm/apm and symlinks /usr/local/bin/apm -> /usr/local/opt/apm/apm
• Linux: installs to /opt/apm/apm and symlinks /usr/local/bin/apm -> /opt/apm/apm
• Windows: installs apm.exe to %LOCALAPPDATA%\pm and safely appends that directory to user PATH if missing

9.2 Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/aaravmaloo/apm.git
cd apm
go build -o pm.exe main.go
./pm.exe setup

9.3 Build Requirements

• Go 1.21+
• Windows, macOS, or Linux

9.4 Pre-built Binaries

Pre-built binaries for Windows, macOS, and Linux for stable releases are available for download from the Releases page.

9.5 Installation of Previews and Betas

Pre-built binaries for Windows, macOS, and Linux for previews, betas, and canarys will be available for download from the Builds page. Note that these builds may break your vault, or may not be stable. These builds are solely for developers and testers to report any bugs present and resolve them. Do not use these builds for production use. Use them at your own risk.

10. Contact & Support

• Primary Maintainer: Aarav Maloo
• Security Alerts: aaravmaloo06@gmail.com
• GitHub Issues: aaravmaloo/apm/issues

11. Development & Contributing

APM is open-source. All PRs must pass the test suite in /tests.

12. Cloud Synchronization Matrix

APM provides native support for multiple cloud storage providers to ensure your vault is available across all your trusted devices.

12.1 Cloud Initialization

To set up synchronization, use the following commands:

• pm cloud init gdrive: Setup Google Drive sync.
• pm cloud init github: Setup GitHub sync (requires token and repo).
• pm cloud init dropbox: Setup Dropbox sync.
• pm cloud init all: Initialize all supported providers simultaneously.

12.2 Safeguards and Scope

• End-to-end encrypted vault blobs are uploaded; cloud providers do not receive plaintext entries or your master password.
• Google Drive and Dropbox ask explicit user consent before storing a one-way retrieval-key hash in provider metadata.
• If metadata consent is declined, retrieval works with direct provider identifiers (Drive file ID / Dropbox path) instead of key-hash lookup.
• Conflict handling is whole-vault only: pm cloud get prompts to overwrite local, keep local and save a conflict copy, or cancel.

13. AI Usage

The code written for APM is completely hand-written by me. Some exceptions include the examples/ folder, which was generated by AI; keep in mind that the plugins parser was completely human-written. AI was used to refactor the code for better naming schemes and readability. Each change made by the AI is monitored.

I acknowledge that AI is a great tool for productivity and I am not against it; however, I feel AI is not perfect at security, nor is a human. Though a human is much preferred for security tools. Hence, I write code by myself, which makes development slower but keeps APM secure. Due to this reason APM releases take upto a month. Releases also may take around two to three weeks when minor changes are made and when bugs are to be fixed.

Copyright (c) 2025-2026 Aarav Maloo. Licensed under the MIT License.

14. Version System For Contributors

(from pre-dev to release stages) (with examples) the stages correspond to the ultimate release. Suppose releasing a v8 of an app. All releases except stable release are released in builds/ folder. Canary --> can-8 Beta --> beta-8 Pre-release --> pre-8 Release --> v8