Import a setup card

If someone is helping you set up Maisnie, they can do most of the setup for you without ever holding one of your passwords. They write you a setup card: a small file with the choices they made for you, a sentence on why for each one, and, in place of every password or key, a note on where that one comes from. You import the card, read exactly what it will change, and approve it. Then Maisnie asks you for each password or key, one at a time, on your own computer.

The person helping you never needs your passwords, and never needs access to your computer or your network. A setup card can be emailed, printed, or read over the phone. Nothing in it is secret, which is exactly why it can travel that way.

Importing one

There are two ways in:

• On the Vault step, the first page of Setup, a line under the heading reads “Did someone prepare a setup card for you? Import it”. It’s there until your vault is set up.
• In Settings, under Setup card, press Import a setup card. You can import a card at any time, not only during setup.

Either way, the page asks for the card: Choose the file if it came as an attachment, or paste its text into the box below if it came in the body of an email. Press Show me what it will do.

The file stays on your computer. Maisnie reads it, shows you the plan, and keeps only the choices you approve; the file itself is never saved anywhere.

Reading the plan

The next page, “Here’s what this setup card will do”, changes nothing yet. It shows:

• Who wrote the card and when, and their note to you, if they left one.
• The choices, one card each: your vault, your sources and their settings (the mail server and your username, the feeds you follow, the time of your morning briefing), how Maisnie reaches an AI, your time zone, the address for remote access, and how many notes someone must appear in before People suggests them. Each says, in a small badge, what approving does:
• Will change: approving sets this.
• Already set up: your computer already has it this way; nothing changes.
• Left for you: Maisnie won’t change this from a card, and says why and where to do it yourself. A card never moves a vault you already have, for example, and never changes the address of remote access that’s already on.

Under each choice, Why is the reason the person who wrote the card gave for it. - Passwords and keys you’ll type: every one the card leaves for you, each with “where it comes from” in the words of whoever wrote the card. A badge says Already saved for any you have saved before; you won’t be asked for those again.

If it all looks right, press Use this card. If not, choose a different card, or ask for a corrected one.

Typing in your passwords and keys

After you approve the card, Maisnie walks you through each password or key it asked for, one page each. The page says where it comes from, has one field for it, and two buttons:

• Save and test saves what you typed (sealed, like everything else you store; see security) and checks it straight away, the same check the Accounts and AI model steps run. Once it passes, press Next. If it doesn’t, the page tells you what went wrong and lets you try again.
• Skip for now moves on without saving anything. The source still asks for it on its own step, as it always would.

The last page, “Your setup card is in”, lists anything still waiting (skipped, or not typed yet), each with an Add it link back to its page. Settings keeps a count of those under Setup card until you’ve typed them all.

Remote access is the one exception. A card can fill in the address you want, but remote access stays off until you turn it on yourself, on the Remote access step, which is also where you give it its Cloudflare token.

What importing never does

A setup card can never:

• carry one of your passwords or keys, or anything that looks like one. A card with a value where a password or key belongs, a long token in its notes, or a link with a key in it, is refused as a whole, nothing from it is used, and the page tells you which place in the card is the problem without repeating what was in it;
• set your passphrase;
• turn remote access on or off;
• start a support session;
• turn on a source, or a way of reaching an AI, that this version of Maisnie doesn’t have.

A card that tries any of these is refused with a plain sentence for each problem, so whoever wrote it can send you a corrected one.

Importing the same card again

Importing a card a second time changes nothing more. Every choice it makes that’s already in place reads Already set up, a password or key you’ve saved isn’t asked for again, and a connection that has already passed its test stays connected.

Changing something later

Nothing a card sets is locked. Change any of it the usual way: each choice lives on its own Setup step, and your time zone and People’s threshold are in Settings.

What Maisnie keeps about an imported card is small: who wrote it, the date, and the “where it comes from” notes for the passwords and keys it asked for, so it can show them to you again. It never keeps the card file, and the notes hold no password or key.

Writing one yourself

maisnie card write <file> writes your own setup as a setup card: every choice, and a note in place of every password and key. It’s a record of how your setup is shaped, and it’s the starting point for someone helping you set up a different computer, not your vault folder itself, which a card never carries, and not a way to re-apply your own setup onto a vault folder you’ve already restored there, which a card leaves for you exactly as it finds it. It never reads your passwords and keys, so the file has none in it to leak. A source you’ve signed in to with your own Google or Microsoft app is named on the card in one line, as “Google Calendar, with your own Google app, signed in as [email protected]” (just “signed in” when the provider gave no email). That line is all a card says about the sign-in: it never carries your client secret or your sign-in itself, and a source you’ve signed out of says nothing. The sign-in is made on the new computer, not typed, so the card leaves it out and its notes say to sign in from Accounts there; only Google’s client secret is still listed as something you paste. maisnie card check <file> reads a card the way importing it would, and says whether it can be used, without changing anything. See write a setup card for the details.