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Cinder

A zero-knowledge, self-destructing note. Write a note, it's encrypted in your browser, and the first person to open the link reads it once before it's gone forever. The server can't read it.

Live: https://cinder.ink · Repo: https://github.com/mgennings/cinder

Start here

• New here? The README is the fastest orientation.
• How does it work? Architecture.
• What about the crypto? Crypto.
• How private is it, really? Security & threat model.
• Common questions → FAQ
• The burn, in depth → How the burn works

The one idea

Everything follows from a single trick: the decryption key lives in the URL fragment — the #… at the end of the link, the one part of a URL browsers never send to a server. So the recipient's browser gets the key (they have the whole link) but Cinder's servers never do. The server stores ciphertext it cannot open. That's what "zero-knowledge" means here: a property of the design, not a promise.

Run and deploy

• Local development — the full stack on your machine, no Docker.
• Deployment — your own copy on AWS.
• API reference — the two endpoints.

Docs philosophy

The real documentation lives in the repo (docs/), versioned with the code and reviewed in pull requests so it never drifts from what's deployed. This wiki is a friendly front door; the repo is the source of truth.