Running a local node

Why move to a local node?

• Full Radicle features. Closing issues, reviewing patches, merging, archiving, and other operations not yet supported in Radish.
• Offline work. Browse and write to repositories without a network connection.
• Self-hosting. Run your own seed for repositories you care about.
• Trust minimisation. Sign with a key under your direct control, not via an OAuth-mediated server.

Step 1 — Get your key off Radish

Open your profile in the user menu and click Identity & keys. The next step depends on where Radish is currently storing the key.

If your key is on GitHub

Clone your private .radish repository:

git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/.radish.git

The directory contains a file named radicle.key — that's your private key.

If your key is on this instance

Click Export key on the Identity & keys page. You'll get a download named radicle.key. Keep it somewhere safe; this file is the entire identity.

Step 2 — Install Radicle

Follow the official install instructions at radicle.xyz. On most systems this is a single shell command and gives you the rad CLI plus a radicle-node binary.

Step 3 — Import your key

Pipe the exported key into rad auth:

rad auth --stdin < radicle.key

This installs the key into your local Radicle keystore, encrypted with a passphrase you choose.

Step 4 — Verify the identity

Confirm that the local node sees the same identity Radish was using:

rad self

The Node ID printed should match the one shown on your Radish profile. Issues and patches you authored through Radish will continue to verify against this key, because they were always signed by it.

Step 5 — (Optional) tell Radish to forget the key

Once your local node is set up, you can drop the server-side copy if you want:

• GitHub-stored: delete the .radish repository from your GitHub account, or revoke the Radish OAuth app at github.com/settings/applications.
• Instance-stored: contact the operator of this instance to remove your key, or sign in to Radish, switch to GitHub storage, and then delete the GitHub .radish repo.

You can keep using Radish even with a local node — they share the underlying network. Some users prefer Radish for triage and the CLI for heavy work.

Working with both

If you keep your key on GitHub and import it into a local node, both copies refer to the same identity. Anything you sign locally and anything Radish signs on your behalf will appear under the same Node ID. There is no synchronisation step — Radicle's network handles replication automatically.

If you instead let Radish generate a fresh key after installing locally, you'll have two distinct identities. That's a valid choice — some people prefer to keep "drive-by" web contributions separate from their primary key.