macaroon-bakery

name	macaroon-bakery
description	Bake, inspect, and manage lnd macaroons for least-privilege agent access. Use when an agent needs scoped credentials — pay-only, invoice-only, read-only, or custom permissions. Also covers signer macaroon scoping and macaroon rotation.

Macaroon Bakery

Bake custom lnd macaroons so every agent gets only the permissions it needs. Never hand out admin.macaroon in production — bake a scoped one instead.

Quick Start

# Bake a pay-only macaroon
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --role pay-only

# Bake an invoice-only macaroon
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --role invoice-only

# Bake a read-only macaroon
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --role read-only

# Inspect any macaroon
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --inspect ~/.lnd/data/chain/bitcoin/mainnet/admin.macaroon

# List all available lnd permissions
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --list-permissions

Docker

The litd container is auto-detected. You can also specify --container:

# Auto-detect litd container (default)
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --role pay-only

# Explicit container
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --role pay-only --container litd

# Inspect a macaroon inside a container
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --inspect /root/.lnd/data/chain/bitcoin/testnet/admin.macaroon --container litd

Remote Nodes

To bake macaroons on a remote lnd node, provide the connection credentials:

# Bake a pay-only macaroon on a remote node
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --role pay-only \
    --rpcserver remote-host:10009 \
    --tlscertpath ~/remote-tls.cert \
    --macaroonpath ~/remote-admin.macaroon \
    --save-to ~/remote-pay-only.macaroon

You need lncli installed locally and copies of the node's TLS cert and a macaroon with macaroon:generate permission (typically admin.macaroon).

Preset Roles

Role	What the agent can do	Cannot do
pay-only	Pay invoices, decode invoices, get node info	Create invoices, open channels, see balances
invoice-only	Create invoices, lookup invoices, get node info	Pay, open channels, see wallet balance
read-only	Get info, balances, list channels/peers/payments	Pay, create invoices, open/close channels
channel-admin	All of read-only + open/close channels, connect peers	Pay invoices, create invoices
signer-only	Sign transactions, derive keys (for remote signer)	Everything else

Baking Custom Macaroons

For permissions not covered by presets, bake a custom macaroon:

# Custom: agent can only pay and check wallet balance
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --custom \
    uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/SendPaymentSync \
    uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/DecodePayReq \
    uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/WalletBalance \
    uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/GetInfo

# Custom with explicit output path
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --custom \
    uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/AddInvoice \
    uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/GetInfo \
    --save-to ~/my-agent.macaroon

Discovering Permissions

# List all available URI permissions
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --list-permissions

# Filter for specific service
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --list-permissions | grep -i invoice

# Filter for routing-related permissions
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --list-permissions | grep -i router

Inspecting Macaroons

# See what permissions a macaroon has
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --inspect <path-to-macaroon>

# Inspect the admin macaroon to see full permissions
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --inspect ~/.lnd/data/chain/bitcoin/mainnet/admin.macaroon

Signer Macaroon Scoping

When using the lightning-security-module skill, the credentials bundle includes admin.macaroon by default. For production, bake a signing-only macaroon on the signer machine:

# On the signer container
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --role signer-only \
    --container litd-signer --rpc-port 10012

# Or on a native signer
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --role signer-only \
    --rpc-port 10012 --lnddir ~/.lnd-signer

# Then re-export the credentials bundle with the scoped macaroon

Macaroon Rotation

Rotate macaroons regularly to limit the window if one is compromised:

# 1. Bake a new macaroon with the same role
skills/macaroon-bakery/scripts/bake.sh --role pay-only --save-to ~/pay-only-v2.macaroon

# 2. Update your agent config to use the new macaroon

# 3. Delete the old macaroon's root key (invalidates it)
skills/lnd/scripts/lncli.sh bakemacaroon --root_key_id 0
# Note: use lncli listmacaroonids and deletemacaroonid for fine-grained control

Best Practices

• One macaroon per agent role. Don't share macaroons between agents with different responsibilities.
• Never use admin.macaroon in production. It's the master key.
• Inspect before deploying. Always verify what a baked macaroon can do.
• Rotate on a schedule. Monthly for production, immediately if compromised.
• Scope signer macaroons too. The remote signer's credentials bundle should use signer-only, not admin.
• Store with 0600 permissions. Macaroons are bearer tokens — treat like passwords.

Common Permission URIs

Permission	Description
uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/GetInfo	Node info (version, pubkey, sync status)
uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/WalletBalance	On-chain wallet balance
uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/ChannelBalance	Lightning channel balance
uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/ListChannels	List open channels
uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/ListPeers	List connected peers
uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/SendPaymentSync	Pay a Lightning invoice
uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/DecodePayReq	Decode a BOLT11 invoice
uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/AddInvoice	Create a Lightning invoice
uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/LookupInvoice	Look up an invoice by hash
uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/ListInvoices	List all invoices
uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/ListPayments	List all payments
uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/ConnectPeer	Connect to a peer
uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/OpenChannelSync	Open a channel
uri:/lnrpc.Lightning/CloseChannel	Close a channel
uri:/signrpc.Signer/SignOutputRaw	Sign a transaction output
uri:/signrpc.Signer/ComputeInputScript	Compute input script for signing
uri:/signrpc.Signer/MuSig2Sign	MuSig2 signing
uri:/walletrpc.WalletKit/DeriveKey	Derive a key
uri:/walletrpc.WalletKit/DeriveNextKey	Derive next key in sequence