mine-pubkey

Start a background rana mining job to generate a Nostr keypair matching the user's vanity or difficulty target, then monitor and report the result.

<essential_principles>

• Always run rana in the background — mining can take seconds to hours depending on target difficulty.
• rana must be installed (which rana). If missing, tell the user to install it: cargo install rana
• Never run rana with a private key or nsec as an argument — rana generates new keypairs, it does not accept existing keys.
• When rana finds a match it prints the nsec, pubkey, and npub to stdout. Capture this output.
• All npubs start with npub1 — when the user wants npub10000, the vanity part is 0000 after the mandatory npub1 prefix. </essential_principles>

**Step 1 — Clarify target** (if not already clear)

Ask the user which type of target they want:

• Hex prefix — pubkey starts with e.g. dead, 0000, cafe (hex chars only)
• npub prefix — npub starts with e.g. npub1rana, npub10000 (bech32 chars: qpzry9x8gf2tvdw0s3jn54khce6mua7l)
• npub suffix — npub ends with specific chars
• Difficulty — NIP-13 leading zero bits (e.g. 20)

Also ask for number of cores to use (default: all available).

Step 2 — Check rana is installed

which rana || echo "NOT FOUND"

If not found, stop and tell the user: rana is required. Install with: cargo install rana

Step 3 — Build the rana command

Target type	Flag	Example
Hex prefix	--vanity=<hex>	rana --vanity=dead
npub prefix	--vanity-n-prefix=<prefix>	rana --vanity-n-prefix=npub1rana
npub suffix	--vanity-n-suffix=<suffix>	rana --vanity-n-suffix=end
Difficulty	--difficulty=<n>	rana --difficulty=20
Multiple npub targets	-n=<a>,<b>,<c>	rana -n=rana,h0dl

Add --cores=<n> if the user specified a core count.

Note: Cannot combine --vanity (hex) with --vanity-n-prefix/suffix or --difficulty. Pick one mode.

Step 4 — Start background job

Save output to a temp file, run in background:

OUTFILE=$(mktemp /tmp/rana-XXXXXX.txt)
echo "Output: $OUTFILE"
rana <flags> > "$OUTFILE" 2>&1 &
echo "PID: $!"

Tell the user: mining has started, PID and output file location.

Step 5 — Monitor for completion

Poll the output file every 10–30 seconds. Rana prints a result line when it finds a match. Look for lines containing nsec and pubkey.

cat "$OUTFILE"

When a result appears, extract and display:

• nsec (private key — sensitive! warn user to keep it safe)
• pubkey (hex)
• npub (bech32)

Step 6 — Report result

Present the result clearly:

✓ Found matching keypair!

pubkey: <hex>
npub:   <npub1...>
nsec:   <nsec1...>  ⚠️ Keep this secret — it's your private key

To configure Claude's Nostr channel with this key:
  /nostr:configure <nsec>

Offer to configure the Nostr channel automatically with the new key if desired.

<difficulty_guide> Expected mining time (rough estimates, single core):

Target	Difficulty	~Time
1 hex char (a)	4 bits	instant
2 hex chars (de)	8 bits	< 1s
4 hex chars (dead)	16 bits	seconds
6 hex chars (dead00)	24 bits	minutes
8 hex chars (deadbeef)	32 bits	hours
npub prefix npub1rana	~20 bits	minutes

More cores = proportionally faster. Use --cores=$(nproc) for maximum speed. </difficulty_guide>

<success_criteria>

• Background job is started and PID + output file are reported to the user
• Mining completes and the nsec/pubkey/npub are presented clearly
• User is warned that nsec is sensitive </success_criteria>