I had a similar issue with the verifying process. I opened an issue requesting better documentation on the signing command so that people can write their own clients: https://github.com/keybase/keybase-issues/issues/174
Yeah, thanks for making this issue. (Chris here, one of the two working on Keybase. I commented on that issue recently.) Getting proofs working totally outside our alpha client (and getting them well documented) is something we're working on this week. Keybase will not require running Node at all to interact with it.
There will be 2 ways to "prove" yourself as a programmer on Keybase:
1. running `keybase prove github` (or whatever service) which is interactive; the keybase client can generate the nice statement for you and pass it off to GPG for signing. This is already working.
2. running something in your shell which requires nothing but gpg and standard shell commands. The key elements here are that you need to generate a signed statement connecting your two accounts, and you need to post it on github. This is pretty simple and won't require Node at all.
Oh, and 3. using some other software of your choice that implements 2.
The reason #2 isn't documented yet is that it's a bit more complicated in certain cases. Consider what it takes to perform a twitter proof (click the "show the proof")
The signed statement itself isn't hosted on twitter (it won't fit) but needs to be boiled down into an agreeable tweet-sized hash. In order to prove twitter manually, you need to generate this statement, boil it down, make the tweet, and push the statement to Keybase.
All this will come, and our goal with Keybase isn't to require Node or npm for anyone.
yes, sorry if that wasn't clear. What I'm saying is that we'll have them documented very shortly. It's a priority for us, which I believe will address the OP's issue.
We'll have documentation on:
- what needs to be in the signed statement
- how to hash the statement for safety on the platform you're posting, if necessary (twitter: yes, github: no, DNS TXT: yes, web domains: no, etc.)
- how to tell Keybase about the statement (API call)
- how to post the statement on Keybase (API call; this is needed in the scenario where it's hashed, twitter style)
These will all be proof specific, which is necessary for reasons you can imagine. Character encodings allowed, where proofs go, what length they can be, etc., what goes into a proof (username?), etc., are all platform specific.
But the goal is that someone can do this with software of their choice.
There will be 2 ways to "prove" yourself as a programmer on Keybase:
1. running `keybase prove github` (or whatever service) which is interactive; the keybase client can generate the nice statement for you and pass it off to GPG for signing. This is already working.
2. running something in your shell which requires nothing but gpg and standard shell commands. The key elements here are that you need to generate a signed statement connecting your two accounts, and you need to post it on github. This is pretty simple and won't require Node at all.
Oh, and 3. using some other software of your choice that implements 2.
The reason #2 isn't documented yet is that it's a bit more complicated in certain cases. Consider what it takes to perform a twitter proof (click the "show the proof")
https://keybase.io/chris/sigs/DZ9rccBD8u-Att6kQzhHHtw-924s7i...
The signed statement itself isn't hosted on twitter (it won't fit) but needs to be boiled down into an agreeable tweet-sized hash. In order to prove twitter manually, you need to generate this statement, boil it down, make the tweet, and push the statement to Keybase.
All this will come, and our goal with Keybase isn't to require Node or npm for anyone.