age plugin key found but unusable
Author: dev-zeroCreated May 26, 2026Updated Jun 2, 2026
When trying to initialize an additional repo, I am presented with a choice including a tag-based identity generated with age-plugin-se (which works for my main repo). But when picking that one, initialization ultimately fails. What I see in the debug log:
2026/05/26 17:07:11.794273 62329 root/init.go:52 root.(*Store).Init Initializing sub store at /Users/user/test for [AGE-PLUGIN-SE-...|age1tag1...]
2026/05/26 17:07:11.794298 62329 leaf/init.go:20 leaf.(*Store).IsInitialized store "/Users/user/test" is initialized: false
2026/05/26 17:07:11.794312 62329 age/recipients.go:40 age.(*Age).FindRecipients ignoring unknown key: AGE-PLUGIN-SE-...|age1tag1...
2026/05/26 17:07:11.794354 62329 age/recipients.go:44 age.(*Age).FindRecipients found usable keys for ["AGE-PLUGIN-SE-...|age1tag1..."]: "ø"
2026/05/26 17:07:11.795051 62329 leaf/init.go:47 leaf.(*Store).Init no usable key for "AGE-PLUGIN-SE-...|age1tag1...". Ignoring.
2026/05/26 17:07:11.795071 62329 leaf/init.go:48 leaf.(*Store).Init ERROR: No usable keys for "AGE-PLUGIN-SE-...|age1tag1..."
2026/05/26 17:07:11.795476 62329 action/init.go:102 action.(*Action).Init Failed to initialize store: failed to init store "test" at "/Users/user/test": failed to initialize new sub store: failed to initialize store: no valid recipients given in [AGE-PLUGIN-SE-...|age1tag...] - stacktrace: failed to init store "test" at "/Users/user/test": failed to initialize new sub store: failed to initialize store: no valid recipients given in [AGE-PLUGIN-SE-...|age1tag1...]with the command GOPASS_DEBUG_LOG=gopass.log gopass init -p test -s test --crypto age.
Passing the identity to encrypt for explicitly works:
gopass init -p test -s test--crypto age "age1tag1..."
My agent estimates that FindRecipients does not know how to parse the plugin-prefixed format, rejects it and returns empty. I did not have the time to dive in properly and verify this, though.
Source: gopasspw/gopass