First run

Start lazybw with:

lazybw

The first screen says “Starting Bitwarden CLI…” while lazybw finds bw, checks its version and asks it whether you are logged in. What comes next depends on the answer.

Logging in

If bw has no account yet, you get the login screen. It has two boxes:

• Server: bitwarden.com (United States), bitwarden.eu (European Union) or your own self-hosted server.
• Method: email and password, single sign-on, or an API key.

Move with j and k, switch between the boxes with Tab and press Enter to continue.

For email and password, and for single sign-on, lazybw steps aside and runs bw login in the terminal, so you see Bitwarden’s own prompts, including two-step login. When bw login finishes, lazybw comes back and opens the vault. You are not asked for the master password a second time.

For an API key, lazybw asks for the client id and secret in its own form. You will find both in the Bitwarden web vault under Settings, Security, Keys.

Unlocking

When bw already knows your account but the vault is locked, lazybw shows the unlock screen. Type the master password and press Enter.

Ctrl-o logs out instead (after confirming), and Ctrl-c quits. Ctrl-c also quits from the login screen and from the start-up and error screens.

Locking

The vault locks after 15 minutes without a key press, and you can lock it yourself with Space then l. Locking wipes everything lazybw holds in memory: the decrypted items, the undo history, the generator history and the clipboard, if it still holds something lazybw copied.

You can also lock a running lazybw from outside, for example from a screen-locker hook:

pkill -USR1 lazybw

Quitting

Press q on the vault screen, or type :q. lazybw clears the clipboard on the way out if it still holds a value it copied.