Set up your secure vault in under 5 minutes. This guide covers everything from account creation to managing secrets for your team.
Fortilis uses your GDK Digital account for authentication. If you already use any GDK product (FTC, GDK-CRM), you can sign in with the same credentials.
Download Fortilis from our download page, install it, and sign in with your existing email and password.
Tip: Your GDK account password is used only for platform authentication. Your vault has its own separate master password for encrypting your secrets.
After signing in for the first time, Fortilis will ask you to create a master password for your encrypted vault.
Your master password is the key to all your secrets. It encrypts your vault locally on your device using AES-256-GCM encryption with Argon2id key derivation.
Important: Fortilis uses zero-knowledge encryption. Your master password never leaves your device and is never stored on our servers. If you lose it, we cannot recover your vault. Consider writing it down and storing it in a physical safe.
When you set your master password:
This two-layer approach means changing your master password only re-wraps the Data Key - it doesn't re-encrypt every secret.
Projects are the primary way to organize your secrets. Create one project per application, service, or team.
Each project can have multiple environment files, similar to .env.development, .env.staging, and .env.production. Click the + tab above the secrets list to add new environment files.
For Git-integrated workflows, switch to Branch view to organize secrets by Git branch. Fortilis can auto-detect your current branch and show the relevant secrets.
Fortilis supports multiple secret types beyond simple key-value pairs.
When you copy a secret value, Fortilis automatically clears it from your clipboard after 45 seconds. This prevents accidentally pasting secrets into the wrong place.
Every time you update a secret, the previous value is preserved. You can view the full history of a secret and roll back to any previous version if needed.
Fortilis includes a full-featured password manager with breach monitoring and a password generator.
Navigate to Passwords in the sidebar. Each password entry stores:
Use the built-in generator to create strong, random passwords. Configure length, character types (uppercase, lowercase, numbers, symbols), and get a strength score before saving.
Fortilis can check your passwords against the Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) database to identify compromised credentials. This check uses k-anonymity - only a partial hash of your password is sent, so the full password is never exposed.
Switching from another password manager? Fortilis can import your data directly.
Tip: After importing, delete the exported file from your computer. Exported password files are unencrypted and should not be kept around.
The Fortilis browser extension provides autofill for login forms and quick access to your passwords directly in the browser.
The extension is available for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. Install it from your browser's extension store or load the unpacked extension for development.
Tip: The extension communicates with the Fortilis desktop app running on your computer. Make sure Fortilis is open and unlocked for autofill to work.
The fort CLI lets you inject secrets into processes and access your vault from the terminal.
Run any command with your secrets automatically injected as environment variables:
Secrets are injected as environment variables into the child process only - they're never written to disk or shell history.
Tip: The CLI communicates with the running Fortilis desktop app via a local TCP socket. Make sure Fortilis is open and your vault is unlocked before using CLI commands.
Share secrets securely with your team using end-to-end encryption. Team members never see each other's master passwords.
Fortilis has four permission levels:
Every action in a shared project is logged in an immutable audit trail with SHA-256 hash chain integrity. You can see who accessed which secret and when, detect any tampering, and export audit logs for compliance.
Fortilis is designed with security as a core principle, not an afterthought.
Copied secrets are automatically cleared from your clipboard after 45 seconds. On supported operating systems, Fortilis also requests that clipboard history managers ignore the copied content.
For teams that need cloud sync, Fortilis supports "Bring Your Own Database" - connect your own PostgreSQL, MySQL, Google Sheets, AWS S3, or Cloudflare R2 backend. Your encrypted data syncs through infrastructure you control.
Set up your vault in under 5 minutes and start managing secrets securely.