JOSE(1)

📦
version 15 · 13 versions
, in arch rolling

👑 so you found jose (that's section 1 of the manual, bestie) 👑

okay so picture this: you're deep in the terminal, you need to sign something, encrypt something, or just vibe-check a key, and boom — jose is right there. this is the man page for the José command line toolkit, and honestly? she's iconic. let's get into it 💅

✨ NAME ✨

jose — the Toolkit for performing JSON Object Signing and Encryption. yes that's the whole name, no notes, it's giving main character energy 🌸

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

here's the whole menu of what she can do. every line is a real invocation, copy-paste ready, no cap 🫶

jose alg [-k KIND]

jose b64 dec -i B64 [-O BIN]

jose b64 enc -I BIN [-o B64]

jose jwe dec -i JWE [-I CT] -k JWK [-p] [-O PT]

jose jwe enc [-i JWE] -I PT -k JWK [-p] [-r RCP] [-o JWE] [-O CT] [-c]

jose jwe fmt -i JWE [-I CT] [-o JWE] [-O CT] [-c]

jose jwk exc [-i JWK] -l JWK -r JWK [-o JWK]

jose jwk gen -i JWK [-o JWK]

jose jwk pub -i JWK [-o JWK]

jose jwk thp -i JWK [-a ALG] [-o THP]

jose jwk use -i JWK [-a] [-r] -u OP

jose jws fmt -i JWS [-I PAY] [-o JWS] [-O PAY] [-c]

jose jws sig [-i JWS] [-I PAY] [-s SIG] -k JWK [-o JWS] [-O PAY] [-c]

jose jws ver -i JWS [-I PAY] -k JWK [-O PAY] [-a]

(and yeah, every one of those subcommands has her own separate man page down in SEE ALSO — we'll get there 💖)

🌈 OVERVIEW 🌈

so real talk: José is a C-language implementation of the Javascript Object Signing and Encryption standards. like, actual C. compiled. fast. not playing around. 🔥

and specifically, José is out here aiming towards implementing these standards, in this exact list, no skips:

that's a whole stack of RFCs and she ate every single one 💀✨

🦋 what the José command line utility actually gives you 🦋

the José command line utility provides facilities for the following — and bestie, this list is lowkey stacked:

  • URL-safe Base64 Encoding & Decoding
  • Key Generation and Management
  • Encryption & Decryption
  • Signing & Verification

like... that's the whole lifecycle of a secret. encoding it, making keys for it, locking it up, unlocking it, signing it, checking the signature. she does it all and she does it in one binary. obsessed 😭💜

🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

Nathaniel McCallum <npmccallum@redhat.com> — thank you for your service, king 👑 (no, but literally, this is the author listed on the page, we're just giving credit where it's due 🫶)

💖 SEE ALSO 💖

go read these next, iykwim, they're all one subcommand deep and they all slay in their own way:

⭐ tiny lil sign-off note before you go: this page is from the JOSE(1) manual, dated 06/09/2026. that's the source/version + date tea 🍓 keep it in your back pocket for citing purposes.

anyway, that's the page! go encrypt something, sign something, generate a key, b64-decode a mystery blob — she's got you. mwah 💋🧚✨

📦 where this page comes from