paseto-zig

Modern, secure PASETO (Platform-Agnostic Security Tokens) library in pure Zig.

Current Zig version: 0.15.0-dev.386+2e35fdd03

✨ Overview

paseto-zig is a production-quality implementation of PASETO v4.local encryption, based on:

• XChaCha20-Poly1305 authenticated encryption (high-security AEAD)

• Constant-time tag comparison to resist timing attacks

• Detached mode (optional): supports separated ciphertext and tag handling

• Robust error handling with precise error types

• Memory safety: no leaks, secure zeroization of sensitive keys

• Fully tested against edge cases, tampering, invalid inputs, large inputs, etc.

Written entirely in pure Zig, no external dependencies.

🚀 Features

• 🔒 Secure by default (state-of-the-art primitives)

• ⚡ Fast and low-overhead

• 🔬 Extensive unit tests (including tampering, wrong AAD, truncated ciphertext, etc.)

• 🧹 Automatic memory management (errdefer, allocator-safe, zeroize keys)

• 🧠 Simple API for encryption and decryption

📦 Usage

Encrypt:

const paseto = @import("path/to/paseto-zig/src/lib/crypto/xchacha20poly1305.zig");
const ciphertext = try paseto.encrypt(
allocator,
key, // 32 bytes
nonce, // 24 bytes
aad, // Additional Authenticated Data
plaintext // Message to encrypt
);

Decrypt:

const plaintext = try paseto.decrypt(
allocator,
key, // 32 bytes
nonce, // 24 bytes
aad, // Must match during decryption
ciphertext // Ciphertext + Poly1305 tag
);

📚 PASETO v4.local Overview

• v4.local = symmetric authenticated encryption

• Powered by XChaCha20 (stream cipher) + Poly1305 (MAC)

• Safer and easier than JWT: no algorithm confusion attacks, no RS256 vs HS256 mistakes

🔧 Build & Test

zig build test

You should see:

Alltestspassed!

Tests cover:

• Successful encrypt/decrypt roundtrips

• Tampering detection

• Wrong AAD rejection

• Truncated ciphertext handling

• Empty plaintext handling

• Large (1MB+) payloads

• Invalid key/nonce size errors

📜 MIT License

🛠️ Roadmap (Optional Future)

• Full PASETO v4.public support (Ed25519 signatures)

• PASETO v2.local (legacy AES-GCM-SIV mode)

• Optimized streaming encryption for very large payloads

• CLI tool for token generation/verification

• WASM compilation support (for web usage)

🤝 Contributions

PRs welcome!

Let's build industry standard Zig crypto tools together. 🚀