Introduction

Bitwarden is an open-source password manager that has become very popular.

• Best Password Manager for Personal, Business & Enterprise | Bitwarden

Besides the Desktop app and Browser extension you can interact with Bitwarden via a cli tool

• Password Manager CLI

Setup

Create an account on Bitwarden Web Vault for free.

• The free tier includes unlimited devices, all the core functions and passkey management.
• Premium tier costs only 1$ per month and you get access to more features. It is very cheap and incredibly good.

Install CLI tool by running:

• MacOS

brew install bitwarden-cli

• Linux

With node

npm install -g @bitwarden/cli

With snap

sudo snap install bw

• Windows

winget install -e --id Bitwarden.CLI

Basic Use

Login

Login to generate a session key

bw login

Set environment variable BW_SESSION with your session key as an environment variable to not include it on every command.

# ? Email address: [email protected]
# ? Master password: [hidden]
# ? Two-step login code: 11111
# You are logged in!
To unlock your vault, set your session key to the `BW_SESSION` environment variable. ex:
$ export BW_SESSION="*******"
> $env:BW_SESSION="*******"
You can also pass the session key to any command with the `--session` option. ex:
$ bw list items --session *******

Add the BW_SESSION generated into your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc.

export BW_SESSION="**********"

Or for Windows Powershell add BW_SESSION to your $PROFILE

$env:BW_SESSION="************"

List items

For example, to list items without BW_SESSION

bw list items --session ******

Can be simplified with the following

bw list items

Search items

To search items run the following

bw list items --search {key}

For example, for bitwarden itself

bw list items --search bitwarden

Get item

You can show a single item by running

 bw get item bitwarden

Get item password

To get the password as a stdout run

 bw get password bitwarden.com

Get item totp (aka verification code)

To get the totp as a stdout run

bw get totp bitwarden.com

Get item notes

 bw get notes bitwarden.com

Templates

Templates are necessary in order to create items, to get the templates for item and folder:

item template

bw get template item

# {"passwordHistory":[],"revisionDate":null,"creationDate":null,"deletedDate":null,"organizationId":null,"collectionIds":null,"folderId":null,"type":1,"name":"Item name","notes":"Some notes about this item.","favorite":false,"fields":[],"login":null,"secureNote":null,"card":null,"identity":null,"reprompt":0}

folder template

 bw get template folder

# {"name":"Folder name"}

Create item

You can create items by using the item template.

bw get template item | jq ".name=\"Bitwarden\" | .login=$(bw get template item.login | jq '.username="username" | .password="mypassword"')" | bw encode | bw create item

Create attachment

bw create attachment --file ./myfile.txt --itemid 16b14c89-65b3-4231-bd2b-15051a6d8g77

Create folder

bw get template folder | jq '.name="My Folder"' | bw encode | bw create folder

Generate passwords

You can generate passwords by running

bw generate

If you’d like to create different types of passwords, you can customize de prompt. For example, to create a passphrase with words

bw generate -p --words 4

Or to replace the separator - with _

 bw generate -p --words 4 --separator _