This guide is for someone who has been given a chela paper share (or several) and needs to put them back together to recover a secret - typically a cryptocurrency wallet seed phrase or a password.

If you arrived here from one of the shares: take a breath. Nothing here is urgent. The shares are the only thing that can recover the secret, and they don't expire. You can come back to this tomorrow if you need to.

You don't need to install anything. You don't need to know how a computer works beyond opening a web browser and double-clicking a file. The whole recovery happens on your own machine, with no internet involved.

Each printed share has a title at the top, a "Required to recover" line, a share code like CHELA-3058-1-3-5-40, a numbered list of words, and short recovery instructions printed at the bottom:

(This is a sample - yours will have the real holder's name and the real words on it.)

You'll need:

• A computer running Windows, Mac, or Linux, with any modern web browser (Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari - any will do).
• The paper shares. Each share has a share code like CHELA-3058-1-3-5-40 and a list of words (anywhere from a handful for a short password to around 28 for a 24-word seed phrase, depending on what was stored). All shares from one backup have the same number of words.
• A minimum number of shares - look on the front of the share for "M of N". For example, 3 of 5 means you need any 3 shares out of the 5 that were made. If you only have 2 of the 5, you can't recover yet - you need a third.

The recovery program reads everything it needs from the words themselves. The share code on the label is a convenience for matching shares up; if a label is smudged but you can still read the words, you can still recover.

You do not need an internet connection during the recovery itself (only to download the recovery program, once).

Open your web browser and go to:

https://github.com/SecretSplitKit/Chela/releases/latest

This page is GitHub. Scroll down to the section called Assets - you'll see a list of files. Find the one whose name ends with -web.html (for example chela-v1.0.0-web.html). Click that file's name. Your browser will download it. It is just a single file.

Save it somewhere you'll remember:

• Windows: the Downloads folder is fine; the Desktop is even easier to find.
• Mac: Downloads or Desktop.
• Linux: wherever you usually save downloads.

1. Open File Explorer and go to the folder where you saved the file (probably Downloads or Desktop).
2. Double-click chela-vX.Y.Z-web.html.
3. Your default web browser will open with chela's main screen.

If Windows shows a security warning ("Windows protected your PC"), this is normal for files downloaded from the internet. Click More info → Run anyway, or right-click the file → Properties → check Unblock → OK, then double-click again.

1. Open Finder and go to the folder where you saved the file (probably Downloads).
2. Double-click chela-vX.Y.Z-web.html.
3. Your default web browser will open with chela's main screen.

If macOS shows a warning that the file is from the internet, click Open (or, if you don't see an Open option, Cancel then right-click the file → Open With → your browser of choice).

1. Open your file manager and go to the folder where you saved the file.
2. Double-click chela-vX.Y.Z-web.html, or right-click → Open With → choose your browser.

The chela main screen has three large buttons. Click the third one: Recover from shares.

The wizard will ask for the share code first - the dashed line near the top of your share, like CHELA-3058-1-3-5-40. The boxes on screen line up with the dashes: type each part into its matching box. (The code is just a convenience for grouping shares; the words carry everything recovery needs. Copy the numbers exactly as printed - don't worry if they don't look "in order".)

Click Continue to Words.

Now the wizard asks for each word on the share. Type the word into each box in order. Each word turns green with a ✓ when it matches the BIP-39 wordlist, or red with an ✗ if it doesn't (which usually means a typo - check the share and re-type):

When all the words are typed and green, click Save Share, Next Share.

For every share after the first, the wizard pre-fills most of the share code for you

• you only need to type the second number in the dashed line (the one right after the four-character group). That number is this share's coordinate: a value unique to each share, not its position in the set. The second share you enter will usually not show 2 there - just copy whatever number is printed:

Then type that share's words, click Save Share, Next Share, and continue until you've entered the minimum number ("M of N") that the shares say is required.

After the last required share, the button changes to Recover Secret →. Click it, and chela rebuilds the secret - but keeps it hidden until you ask for it, so it is not sitting on screen while someone might be watching:

When you are somewhere private and no one can see the screen, click Reveal secret:

This is the secret the shares were protecting. Write it down somewhere safe (a piece of paper kept in a secure location is fine for short-term use). What you do with it next depends on what it unlocks:

• A cryptocurrency wallet seed phrase - type it into the wallet app the original owner used (e.g. MetaMask, Ledger Live, Trezor Suite). Look up "import seed phrase into [wallet name]".
• A password - that's just the password. Use it to log in to the person's computer, password manager, or something else that they may have noted.

When you're done, close the browser tab. chela does not store anything on disk.

You need at least M shares (the number in "M of N" on the front, e.g. 3 of 5 means any 3 shares). If you have fewer than M, you cannot recover, and chela cannot help - that's the design of the system. If you can't find the missing shares, the secret may be permanently lost.

The BIP-39 wordlist only has 2048 words and each starts with a unique 4-letter prefix. If you can read even the first 4 letters of a smudged word, look it up on the BIP-39 English wordlist and type the full word.

If a whole word is unreadable, you can sometimes still recover by trying the most likely candidates one at a time - but you may need help from someone technical.

Two common messages:

• "a share failed its built-in checksum" - one share has a mistyped word, or the wrong number of words. Click ← Back to that share's words and look carefully (the green ✓ catches a misspelled word, but not when you type a different valid word by mistake).
• "these shares are not from the same split" - one of the shares isn't from this backup. Check that every share shows the same four-character group in its code (e.g. 3058); a share with a different group belongs to another backup and can't be mixed in.

Correct the offending share and continue.

Right-click the file → Open With → choose your browser explicitly (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari).

• Nothing is sent over the internet. chela's recovery program is a single self-contained HTML file. Everything happens inside your browser, on your own machine.
• You can disconnect from Wi-Fi before recovering if you want belt-and-braces safety. The recovery works the same way offline.
• Open the file in a private browser window with no extensions installed. A browser extension can read what's on the page, including the recovered secret.
• When you close the browser tab, the secret is gone from the computer. chela does not save anything to disk.
• Don't take screenshots of the recovered-secret screen. Screenshots end up in cloud backups (iCloud, OneDrive, Google Photos) and become a way for the secret to leak. Write it down on paper instead.

This step is optional. It exists for people who want to confirm that the file they downloaded is exactly the file that the chela maintainers released, not a tampered copy. It requires installing a small command-line tool called minisign. Most people skip this and rely on GitHub's HTTPS download being trustworthy.

See the Verifying a release section of the README for the full procedure.