RBW(1)

okay bestie, you just pulled up RBW(1) — that's rbw, section 1, General Commands Manual 🎀 grab a snack, this is gonna be good.

💖 NAME 💖

rbw — the unofficial command line client for Bitwarden ✨

Like. it's Bitwarden. but in your terminal. no browser, no extension, just vibes 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

rbw command [options]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so rbw is an unofficial command line client for Bitwarden 🗝️ and the way it works is genuinely iconic: it runs a background agent (rbw-agent) that just... keeps your decrypted vault chilling in memory 👑

which means?? you do not have to type your master password for every single operation. no cap. it's the same energy as ssh-agent(1) or gpg-agent(1), if you know those besties — and if you don't, you're about to, iykyk 🫶

🌸 COMMANDS 🌸

🧚 Account Management

• register — register this device with the Bitwarden server 📱 when you're on the official Bitwarden server, you need to do this before your first login, otherwise the bot detection gets suspicious of you 😭 (rude). use your personal API key credentials.
• login — log in to the Bitwarden server 👋
• unlock — unlock the local Bitwarden database 🔓
• unlocked — check whether the local Bitwarden database is currently unlocked right now, at this very moment 👀
• lock — lock the password database 🔒 (self care, honestly)
• sync — update the local copy of the Bitwarden database from the server 🔄
• purge — remove the local copy of the password database 🗑️ it's giving "we're done here"
• stop-agent — terminate the background agent 💀 bye bestie

👀 Viewing Entries

• list [--fields fields] — list every entry in the local Bitwarden database 📋 --fields takes a comma-separated list of id, name, user, folder, type. default is name. alias: ls ✨
• get name [user] — display the password for the given entry 🔑 [--field field] prints a specific field instead of the password; [--full] also prints the notes 📝 alias: show
• search term — search for entries whose name, username, or URI matches term 🔍
• code name [user] — display the current TOTP authenticator code for the given entry ⏱️ alias: totp
• history name [user] — view the password history for the given entry 🕰️ the lore

✏️ Modifying Entries

• add name [user] — add a new password entry ➕ it opens $VISUAL or $EDITOR so you can type in the password and the notes. the first line gets saved as the password; everything after that becomes the notes ✍️
• generate len [name [user]] — generate a fresh random password of length len 🎲 if you give it a name, it saves that password to the database too. [--no-symbols] generates without special characters, [--only-numbers] generates a numeric password, [--nonconfusables] avoids visually similar characters, and [--diceware] generates a passphrase of len words from the EFF word list 📖 alias: gen
• edit name [user] — modify an existing entry 🛠️ opens $VISUAL or $EDITOR with the current password and notes loaded up
• remove name [user] — remove an entry from the database ❌ alias: rm

⚙️ Configuration

• config show — display all your current configuration settings 🖥️ the whole situation
• config set key value — set a configuration option 🎛️ valid keys are:
  • email — Bitwarden account email address 📧
  • base_url — base URL for a self-hosted Bitwarden server 🏠
  • identity_url — identity service URL (overrides base_url) 🪪
  • ui_url — web vault UI URL (overrides base_url) 🌐
  • notifications_url — notifications service URL (overrides base_url) 🔔
  • lock_timeout — seconds of inactivity before the agent locks the vault. default: 3600 ⏳
  • sync_interval — seconds between automatic syncs. default: 3600. set it to 0 to disable 🔁
  • pinentry — pinentry program to use for password prompts. default: pinentry 🔐
  • client_cert_path — path to a PEM client certificate for mutual TLS 📜

🐚 Shell Completions

• gen-completions shell — print a shell completion script to stdout 🖨️ supported shells: bash, zsh, fish, powershell, elvish, nushell, fig 🐟 lowkey such a serve

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

• VISUAL, EDITOR — the editor used by the add and edit commands ✍️
• RBW_AGENT — path to a custom rbw-agent(1) binary 🛠️

🍓 FILES 🍓

• $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/rbw/config.json — the configuration file 📄 defaults to ~/.config/rbw/config.json
• $XDG_DATA_HOME/rbw/ — vault data and device identifier 🗄️ defaults to ~/.local/share/rbw/
• $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/rbw/ — agent socket and PID file 🔌

💜 EXAMPLES 💜

log in and unlock the vault:

$ rbw login
$ rbw unlock

list all entries:

$ rbw list

get the password for an entry:

$ rbw get github.com

get the password for a specific user:

$ rbw get github.com myuser

add a new entry:

$ rbw add github.com myuser

generate and store a 20-character password:

$ rbw generate 20 github.com myuser

get a TOTP code:

$ rbw code github.com

use a self-hosted server:

$ rbw config set base_url https://bitwarden.example.com

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

rbw-agent(1), pinentry(1), gpg-agent(1), ssh-agent(1) — go read those too, they're the supporting cast 🫶

👑 AUTHORS 👑

rbw was written by Jesse Luehrs <doy@tozt.net> 💖

this manual page was written by Nadzeya Hutsko <nadzya.info@gmail.com> 💖

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and that's the whole thing bestie, you ate that 🎀 this page came to you straight from Debian, dated April 16, 2026 — go forth and manage your passwords, main character 💅✨