Splitting on the command line

chela-cli is the scriptable interface: you pass flags, it prints shares. It does one split per run and never prompts, so it drops cleanly into shell scripts. This page covers splitting a secret; to put it back together, see recovery on the command line. Prefer to be walked through the choices? Use the terminal wizard. Want nothing installed? Use the website. All three produce the exact same shares.

See the options

Run it with no arguments, or --help, to print the full usage. There are two verbs, split and recover; the rest is flags.

Terminal showing chela-cli help: a split verb that takes --mnemonic or --text with -m and -n, a recover verb that reads from stdin, and output flags for writing paper-backup HTML and JSON files. — `chela-cli --help` - the two verbs and the output flags.

Split a text password

Pass the secret with --text, the threshold with -m, and the total with -n. This makes a 2-of-3 split: three shares, any two of which recover the secret.

chela-cli split --text "correct horse battery staple" -m 2 -n 3

Each share prints as a short header line plus a list of BIP-39 words. The header (CHELA-...) names the recovery set, this share's coordinate, and the rule; the words carry everything needed to recover, so a share is complete on its own piece of paper. The share format breaks the words down field by field.

Terminal: chela-cli splits a text password into three shares, each printed as a CHELA header line followed by a row of BIP-39 words. — A 2-of-3 split of a text password. Hand one share to each holder.

Split a wallet seed

For a BIP-39 wallet seed, pass the words with --mnemonic (and --passphrase if your wallet uses one). chela checks the mnemonic's own checksum before splitting, so a mistyped seed is caught up front.

chela-cli split --mnemonic "abandon abandon abandon abandon abandon abandon \
abandon abandon abandon abandon abandon about" -m 3 -n 5

Terminal: chela-cli splits a 12-word BIP-39 seed into a 3-of-5 set of shares. — A 3-of-5 split of a wallet seed: five shares, any three recover.

Save printable and machine-readable backups

Printing to the terminal is fine for a quick split, but for real backups add output flags. --paper writes a print-ready HTML page (one share per sheet); --json writes a machine-readable bundle any chela tool can read back. --name and --shareholders label the printout.

chela-cli split --text "correct horse battery staple" -m 2 -n 3 \
  --paper backup.html --json backup.json \
  --name "Bitcoin cold wallet" --shareholders "Alice,Bob,Carol"

Terminal: chela-cli split with --paper and --json flags, reporting that it wrote backup.html and backup.json. — The same split, also written to a paper-backup page and a JSON bundle.

The paper backup prints each share on its own page, words large enough to read and re-type, with a recovery pointer and a machine-readable copy of the share for tools.

A printed chela paper backup: a single share shown as a titled page with its share code, its BIP-39 words laid out in a numbered grid, and recovery instructions. — One printed share. Each holder keeps a page like this.

Next steps

You have shares. To put the secret back together, see recovery on the command line. The same split also works in the terminal wizard and the website, and the exact wire format is in SPEC.md.