Technical Architecture

APM Technical Architecture

This document covers the internal structure and implementation details of APM.

1. File Format (v1)

The APM vault is a binary file with the following structure:

Offset	Size	Name	Description
0	8B	Magic	"APMVAULT" header.
8	1B	Version	Format version (currently 1).
9	16B	Salt	Used for Argon2id KDF.
25	32B	Validator	HMAC of the master password for verification.
57	12B	Nonce	AES-GCM IV.
69	...	Ciphertext	AES-GCM encrypted JSON vault data.
End - 32	32B	HMAC	HMAC-SHA256 signature of the preceding data.

2. Code Organization

The project is written in Go and organized as follows:

• main.go: CLI entry point, command definitions (Cobra), and UI logic.
• src/vault.go: Primary data structures and CRUD operations.
• src/utils.go: Cryptographic primitives, key derivation, and password generation.
• src/portability.go: Serialization and import/export logic (JSON/CSV/TXT).
• src/session.go: Logic for managing temporary unlock sessions.

3. Development

Prerequisites

• Go 1.20+
• github.com/spf13/cobra
• golang.org/x/crypto/argon2
• github.com/fatih/color

Build

To build the APM binary:

go build -o pm.exe

Testing

Run the comprehensive test suite to verify cryptographic and logic integrity:

go test -v ./...