zig-keychain¶

Portable system keychain access in Zig -- store, lookup, delete, and search generic secrets using macOS Keychain Services and Linux Secret Service, with a stable C FFI.

License: Zlib OR MIT

Features¶

Store: Save generic secrets to the system keychain
Lookup: Retrieve secrets by service + account
Delete: Remove secrets from the keychain
Search: Find keychain items matching an account name
Platform backends: macOS (SecItem API), Linux (libsecret/org.freedesktop.secrets)
C FFI: All operations exported for Swift, C, C++ interop
Zig package API: Direct Zig imports use src/root.zig; C ABI exports stay in src/ffi.zig

Quick Start¶

# Build static library
zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseFast

# Run tests
zig build test

# Build C example
zig build example

Architecture¶

graph TD
    A[Application] -->|C FFI| B[ffi.zig]
    B --> C[keychain.zig<br/>Platform Dispatch]
    C -->|macOS| D[keychain_macos.zig<br/>Security.framework]
    C -->|Linux| E[keychain_linux.zig<br/>libsecret / D-Bus]

Source Tree¶

zig-keychain/
  build.zig              -- Build configuration
  include/
    zig_keychain.h       -- C header (public API)
  src/
    root.zig             -- Zig package API root
    ffi.zig              -- C FFI exports
    keychain.zig         -- Platform dispatch
    keychain_macos.zig   -- macOS Security.framework backend
    keychain_linux.zig   -- Linux libsecret backend

Requirements¶

Zig 0.15.2+
macOS 13+ or Linux with libsecret

Apple Interop Scope¶

zig-keychain replaces only the generic-password keychain call site: store, lookup, delete, and search. It does not replace SwiftUI, AppKit, UIKit, Cocoa, iCloud Keychain, Secure Enclave, LocalAuthentication, biometric prompts, access groups, synchronizable items, certificates, private keys, or application UI lifecycle.

See Apple Interop for Swift/Objective-C status and current parity gaps.