age encrypts a file to a small public key, or to an SSH key you already have. Filippo Valsorda designed it to avoid OpenPGP’s ceremony. One command encrypts, one decrypts. The format is documented and several apps speak it. Keys look like short strings starting with age1.
It does not do the web of trust, and it is not email. GUIs exist and they are not the heart of the tool. If you need many recipients and a long-lived identity, you may be back in GnuPG territory. Lose the identity file and the files encrypted to it stay closed. There is no vendor to reset.
Use it to encrypt a file before you send it. github.com/FiloSottile/age
age can encrypt to an SSH key so you are not inventing a second key type. That is convenient and it means your SSH key is now also a file-encryption key. Protect it. Test a round trip to another machine. The identity file is tiny and easy to lose in a dotfile. Print the public key into your notes if you want, and keep the private key with your other secrets. There is no key server gossip and no web of trust. You must get the public key to the sender yourself.
