bw-secrets — Agent-friendly Bitwarden/Vaultwarden secrets helper

Single-file, pure-Python (stdlib only) helper for retrieving secrets from a self-hosted Bitwarden/Vaultwarden vault. Designed for agents (AI coding agents, kanban workers, cron jobs) and humans alike.

Why this exists

The bw CLI is powerful but not agent-friendly: it needs a session token, serves a stale local cache, and fails silently on non-ASCII item names. bw-secrets wraps it with:

• Auto-sync before every read (the CLI serves a local cache)
• Lookup by id, never by name (avoids the em-dash silent-failure bug)
• Agent exit codes: 0 found, 1 not found, 2 ambiguous match
• No session file on disk — re-unlocks per invocation, token stays in-process
• No jq, no pexpect — pure Python 3 stdlib
• Org-first by default — get/list/env search the default org's collections; personal-vault items require --personal (or --all)
• Org-aware, case-insensitive collection lookup

Organizations by default

bw-secrets is org-first: secrets for agents belong in an organization, not in a personal vault. This gives you shared access control, collections, and auditability — a personal vault is a single-user silo with none of that.

By default, get, list, and env search only the default org (BW_ORG_ID). Personal-vault items are excluded unless you ask for them:

bw-secrets get <name>              # searches the default org only
bw-secrets get <name> --personal   # searches personal vault items only
bw-secrets get <name> --all        # searches everything

Setting up an org for your agent (walkthrough)

If you don't have an org yet, here's the recommended setup. The pattern: one dedicated user account per agent, added to the org with access to only the collections it needs.

1. Create the agent's Bitwarden account (a dedicated user, e.g. agent-name@yourdomain.com — never share your personal account with an agent): Create a Bitwarden account

2. Create an organization (free for personal use; this is where shared secrets live): Getting started with organizations · About organizations

3. Invite the agent's user account to the org and assign it a role (User is enough for read access; Owner/Admin only if the agent must manage the org): Manage users in your organization

4. Create collections for the agent's secret types (e.g. infrastructure, applications, credentials, devops): Create collections

5. Assign the agent user to the collections it needs and set permissions (Read-only is the safe default for an agent): Assign users to collections · Collection permissions

6. Point bw-secrets at the org: set BW_ORG_ID to the new org's id in ~/.config/bw/config.env (or export it), then verify with bw-secrets org collections.

Self-hosted option: Vaultwarden

Don't want to pay for Bitwarden or send secrets to their cloud? Vaultwarden is a free, open-source, self-hosted Bitwarden-compatible server — drop-in compatible with the bw CLI and this tool. Just set BW_SERVER to your instance URL.

• Vaultwarden on GitHub
• Self-host Bitwarden (official docs) · Self-host an organization

Requirements

• bw CLI (Bitwarden CLI) — on PATH
• Master password file (default ~/.config/bw/master_pw, chmod 600)
• Python 3.8+

Install

./install.sh          # copies bw-secrets to ~/.local/bin/bw-secrets

Or manually: copy bw-secrets to ~/.local/bin/, chmod 700.

Configuration

All values are overridable via environment variables or ~/.config/bw/config.env (highest wins: env var > config file > default).

Variable	Default	Purpose
BW_SERVER	(required)	Vaultwarden URL
BW_ORG_ID	(required for org-first)	Default org id
BW_MASTER_PW_FILE	~/.config/bw/master_pw	Master password file
BW_BIN	bw	bw CLI path

# ~/.config/bw/config.env (chmod 600)
BW_SERVER=https://vault.example.com
BW_ORG_ID=<your-org-id>
BW_MASTER_PW_FILE=/path/to/master_pw

Agent onboarding (copy-paste prompt)

Paste the block below to any agent to configure this tool interactively. The agent should run each step, confirm the result, and only proceed on success.

You are configuring the `bw-secrets` tool — an agent-friendly wrapper around
the Bitwarden CLI for retrieving secrets from a self-hosted vault. Work
through these steps in order, running every command and reporting the result
of each before moving on.

STEP 1 — Install
Clone the repo to a temp dir, run ./install.sh, then remove the clone:
  git clone <repo-url> /tmp/bw-secrets-setup
  cd /tmp/bw-secrets-setup && ./install.sh
  cd / && rm -rf /tmp/bw-secrets-setup
Confirm: `~/.local/bin/bw-secrets` exists and is executable (chmod 700).

STEP 2 — Configure
Create ~/.config/bw/config.env (chmod 600) with:
  BW_SERVER=<vault-url>
  BW_ORG_ID=<org-id>
  BW_MASTER_PW_FILE=<path-to-master-password-file>
Ask the user for these values if they are not already set. Do NOT ask for or
store the master password itself — it must never be typed or stored anywhere
except the master password file.

STEP 3 — Verify the environment
Run `bw-secrets status`. You should see JSON with "status":"locked" and the
serverUrl you configured. If `bw` is not found, install the Bitwarden CLI and
ensure it is on PATH.

STEP 4 — Test retrieval (live vault)
Run these and confirm each returns a value (do not print full secret values —
show only the first 6 and last 4 characters):
  bw-secrets org list
  bw-secrets org collections
  bw-secrets list --all
  bw-secrets get <some-known-item> --all username
If any command errors with "could not parse", re-run it — the tool retries
internally, but a stale session can still fail once; a second run succeeds.

STEP 5 — Verify exit codes (agent contract)
  bw-secrets get "definitely-not-a-real-item-xyz"; echo $?   # expect: 1
  bw-secrets get "a"; echo $?                                # expect: 2 (ambiguous)
  bw-secrets get <some-known-item> --all >/dev/null; echo $? # expect: 0

When all five steps pass, report: "bw-secrets configured and verified —
install OK, retrieval OK, exit codes 0/1/2 OK." If any step fails, stop and
report the exact error rather than guessing.

Usage

# Get a secret (password is default field) — searches the default org
bw-secrets get <name>
bw-secrets get <name> username
bw-secrets get <name> custom:<field>
bw-secrets get <name> json

# Search scope (default: org only)
bw-secrets get <name> --personal   # personal vault items only
bw-secrets get <name> --all        # everything (org + personal)

# Scoped to a collection (case-insensitive)
bw-secrets get <name> --collection Infrastructure
bw-secrets org get Infrastructure <name> [field]

# List / search
bw-secrets list [search]
bw-secrets list [search] --personal
bw-secrets org items Infrastructure [search]

# Org / collection discovery
bw-secrets org list
bw-secrets org collections

# Environment-style output (for sourcing)
bw-secrets env <name> [field]

# Maintenance
bw-secrets sync
bw-secrets status
bw-secrets unlock

Fields

Field	Description
password (default)	Login password
username	Login username
notes	Item notes
totp	TOTP URI
url	First login URI
custom:<name>	Custom field by name
json	Full item JSON
<dotted.path>	Any dotted path into the item, e.g. login.uris.0.uri

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Found, value printed to stdout
1	Not found / error
2	Ambiguous match (multiple items) — refine your search

Security rules

• Secrets ALWAYS live in Bitwarden. This tool only reads them at runtime.
• Never write the session token to disk. Re-unlock per invocation.
• Never echo secrets to logs. Use set +x around secret handling.
• Never commit .env files or credentials.
• The master password file is the ONLY secret on disk (chmod 600).

Development

git clone <repo-url>
# edit bw-secrets, test against the live vault, commit, push

See SKILL.md for the agent-facing usage documentation.