Bitwarden Password Manager Provider

The Bitwarden Password Manager (bw) provider reads and writes secrets by using the official bw CLI.

At a glance

Quick start

Sign in, unlock the vault, and export the session returned by bw unlock:

$ bw login
$ export BW_SESSION="$(bw unlock --raw)"

Terminal window

Then write a secret and use it in a command:

$ secretspec set DATABASE_URL --provider bw://Enter value for DATABASE_URL: postgresql://localhost/mydb✓ Secret 'DATABASE_URL' saved to bw (profile: default)
$ secretspec run --provider bw:// -- npm start

Terminal window

Setup

Prerequisites

• Bitwarden CLI (bw)
• Bitwarden account
• For self-hosted servers: the CLI pointed at your server with bw config server before logging in (see Self-hosted servers)
• Signed in via bw login and unlocked with bw unlock
• BW_SESSION environment variable set

Build SecretSpec with --features bw when the provider is not included by your package.

Authentication

The provider uses the active bw CLI session. Export the session key after unlocking the vault:

$ export BW_SESSION="your-session-key"

Terminal window

Before reads and writes, SecretSpec requires the CLI status to be unlocked. If the CLI is signed out or the vault is locked, it reports combined guidance to run bw login and bw unlock, then set BW_SESSION.

Self-hosted servers

The bw CLI reads its server address from its own configuration file, written by bw config server. It does not accept a server through an environment variable or a per-command flag, and it refuses to change servers while a session is active. SecretSpec therefore cannot switch servers for you.

Configure the CLI once, before logging in:

$ bw logout                                    # if already logged in
$ bw config server https://vault.company.com
$ bw login
$ bw unlock
$ export BW_SESSION="session-key-from-unlock"

Terminal window

With the CLI configured, ?server= records which server the project expects. SecretSpec compares it against the CLI’s current setting before each operation and fails with the commands above when they disagree, instead of silently reading or writing secrets on the wrong server:

# secretspec.toml — documents the expected server for the whole team[providers]company_vault = "bw://?server=https://vault.company.com"

Omit ?server= to accept whatever server the CLI is configured for.

Configuration

URI format

bw://[collection]bw://[org@collection]bw://?server=https://vault.company.combw://?type=login&field=passwordbw://?folder=team/{project}/{profile} # 0.20+

• collection: Target collection, by name or by ID
• org@collection: Organization and collection, each by name or by ID
• type: Item type to require when matching an existing item and to use when creating a new one (login, card, identity, sshkey, or securenote)
• field: Built-in or custom field to read or write
• folder (0.20+): Convention item-title prefix. Supports {project} and {profile} and defaults to secretspec/{project}/{profile}. This is not a Bitwarden folder: Bitwarden folders are personal to each vault user and therefore cannot provide a shared project namespace.
• server: The self-hosted server this configuration expects. This does not configure the CLI — it is a guard that fails with remediation steps when the bw CLI is pointed somewhere else. See Self-hosted servers.

Organizations and collections

Names and IDs are interchangeable: SecretSpec resolves a name to the ID the bw CLI requires. Names match case-insensitively, and one containing a space must be percent-encoded (bw://Acme%20Inc@dev-secrets).

The organization is a scope and an assertion rather than a filter. It selects which dev-secrets you mean when several organizations have one, and it must agree with the collection you named — addressing a collection that lives somewhere else is an error rather than a silent search of the wrong place. A collection identifies its own organization, so naming the organization is optional whenever the collection name is unambiguous:

$ secretspec get DATABASE_URL --provider "bw://dev-secrets"

Terminal window

An address that cannot be resolved fails immediately and lists the organizations or collections that do exist. If a collection was created or shared with you recently, run bw sync so the CLI can see it.

URI examples

# Password Manager - Personal vault$ secretspec set API_KEY --provider bw://
# Password Manager - Organization collection$ secretspec set DATABASE_URL --provider "bw://myorg@dev-secrets"
# Password Manager - Self-hosted instance (CLI must already be configured# for this server; see Self-hosted servers below)$ secretspec set TOKEN --provider "bw://?server=https://vault.company.com"
# Password Manager - Specific item type and field$ secretspec get 'MyApp Database' --provider 'bw://?type=login&field=username'

Terminal window

Project configuration

Define reusable aliases when a team uses a shared organization or collection:

[providers]team_vault = "bw://myorg@dev-secrets"
[profiles.default.defaults]providers = ["team_vault"]

secretspec.toml

Profiles can select different aliases or the provider directly:

[profiles.development.defaults]providers = ["bw"]
[profiles.production.defaults]providers = ["bw"]

secretspec.toml

Discover declarations

SecretSpec 0.18+ can initialize a manifest from the items visible through a Bitwarden provider URI. Scope discovery to a collection, and optionally an item type, so unrelated personal or organization-vault entries are not treated as application secrets:

$ secretspec init --from 'bw://myorg@dev-secrets?type=login' # 0.18+✓ Created secretspec.toml with 8 secrets

Terminal window

In SecretSpec 0.20+, an item under the selected project/profile convention prefix becomes a convention declaration: for example, secretspec/payments/production/API_KEY becomes API_KEY. Items under another project/profile prefix are skipped. A bare existing item such as LEGACY_TOKEN is still discovered, but its declaration receives ref = { item = "LEGACY_TOKEN" } so it remains directly addressable.

Discovered keys must contain only letters, numbers, and underscores, cannot start with a number, and cannot be the reserved name defaults. Bitwarden allows duplicate names and matches them case-insensitively; discovery stops when two selected items map to colliding keys instead of generating an ambiguous manifest. Rename an item or narrow discovery with ?type=.

Discovery never writes secret values. In SecretSpec 0.20+, --project and --profile select the convention prefix used to recognize managed items; they do not rename anything in Bitwarden. To migrate values after reviewing the declarations, run the secretspec import command printed by init.

Environment overrides

Environment variables take precedence over organization, collection, item type, and default field values in the provider URI. A value left in the shell can therefore change an operation even when --provider supplies those settings; unset unwanted overrides before running SecretSpec:

$ export BITWARDEN_DEFAULT_TYPE=login
$ export BITWARDEN_DEFAULT_FIELD=password
$ export BITWARDEN_ORGANIZATION=myorg
$ export BITWARDEN_COLLECTION=dev-secrets
$ secretspec get DATABASE_PASSWORD --provider bw://

Terminal window

Organization and collection values can be names or IDs and resolve in the same way as values in the URI. The complete precedence is:

Storage model

Convention item names

SecretSpec-managed convention items use the title secretspec/{project}/{profile}/{key} by default. Project and profile are part of the title so the same collection or personal vault can safely hold DATABASE_URL for several projects and environments. ?folder= replaces the secretspec/{project}/{profile} prefix, and the key is appended to it.

The prefix is an item-title namespace, not a Bitwarden folderId. Explicit ref.item coordinates always name the complete existing item title and do not receive the prefix.

The Bitwarden provider supports every Password Manager item type. When an item type is selected through BITWARDEN_DEFAULT_TYPE or ?type=, it filters reads and updates to that type and selects the type of a newly created item. If neither is set, reads and updates accept any matching type, while new items are Logins.

Item types

Login items

# Get password field (default)$ secretspec get 'Database Login' --provider 'bw://?type=login'
# Get username field$ secretspec get 'Database Login' --provider 'bw://?type=login&field=username'
# Get custom field$ secretspec get 'API Service' --provider 'bw://?type=login&field=api_key'

Terminal window

Credit card items

# Get API key from custom field (field required)$ secretspec get 'Stripe Payment' --provider 'bw://?type=card&field=api_key'
# Get card number$ secretspec get 'Company Card' --provider 'bw://?type=card&field=number'

Terminal window

SSH key items

# Get private key (default)$ secretspec get 'Deploy Key' --provider 'bw://?type=sshkey'
# Get passphrase$ secretspec get 'Deploy Key' --provider 'bw://?type=sshkey&field=passphrase'

Terminal window

Bitwarden requires an SSH key item to carry all three of the private key, public key and fingerprint — it rejects or discards an item that leaves any of them empty. When set creates one, the two fields it is not writing are therefore filled with (not set by SecretSpec). Replace them in Bitwarden if you need the real values, or write them yourself with ?field=public_key and ?field=key_fingerprint.

Identity items

# Get custom field (field required)$ secretspec get 'Employee Record' --provider 'bw://?type=identity&field=employee_id'
# Get email field$ secretspec get 'Personal Identity' --provider 'bw://?type=identity&field=email'

Terminal window

Secure note items

# Get value from secure note$ secretspec get 'Legacy Config' --provider 'bw://?type=securenote&field=config_value'

Terminal window

Default fields

When no field is named, each item type uses the default below. The same default applies to reads and writes, so secretspec set followed by secretspec get returns what was written.

The default depends only on the item type, never on the secret or item name. The extra read fallbacks exist to make existing, hand-created vault items resolve; writes always target the default field itself.

To address anything else, name the field explicitly with ?field= or a ref mapping:

[profiles.default]STRIPE_KEY = { description = "Card custom field", ref = { item = "Stripe Test Card", field = "api_key" } }DEPLOY_PUBKEY = { description = "SSH public key", ref = { item = "Deploy SSH Key", field = "public_key" } }

Built-in field names and aliases resolve only to that built-in field. Custom field names first match in full, case-insensitively. If there is no exact match, SecretSpec uses the first custom field whose name contains the requested text, also case-insensitively. Use the complete custom-field name to avoid an unintended partial match. field = "notes" addresses a Secure Note’s body.

How items are matched

Resolved item titles are matched in full, case-insensitively — test database finds Test Database, but API_KEY never matches API_KEY_OLD. The bw CLI itself accepts a substring here, which works well interactively because it prints the candidates and lets you choose; a name in secretspec.toml is resolved with nobody watching, so a partial match would quietly read — or overwrite — a neighbouring item.

Bitwarden does not require names to be unique. When more than one item matches, SecretSpec refuses the address and lists the colliding IDs rather than picking one. Rename the items so the selected name is unique, or use ?type= when the collisions have different item types.

Adding ?type= narrows the match to that item type, on both reads and writes. That is how a Card and a Login of the same name stay separately addressable:

$ secretspec get API_KEY --provider "bw://?type=card"

Terminal window

Use existing secrets

Use a ref for an existing Bitwarden item that does not use SecretSpec’s project/profile title convention, when the SecretSpec key differs from the item title, or when a specific field is required:

[profiles.default]DATABASE_URL = { description = "Application database", ref = { item = "MyApp Database", field = "password" }, providers = ["bw"] }

secretspec.toml

ref.item is matched against the Bitwarden item name, not its item ID.

Migrating bare item names

Releases through 0.19 wrote convention secrets under their bare keys. Those titles contain no project or profile ownership, so SecretSpec cannot safely guess which project should inherit one. Version 0.20 therefore does not fall back to a bare item during convention reads or writes.

Rename a SecretSpec-managed item from, for example, DATABASE_URL to secretspec/my-project/default/DATABASE_URL. If an item is intentionally shared or externally managed, keep its existing title and declare it explicitly:

[profiles.default]DATABASE_URL = { description = "Shared database", ref = { item = "DATABASE_URL" }, providers = ["bw"] }

secretspec.toml

secretspec init --from bw:// in 0.20+ generates this native ref form for bare existing items automatically.

CI/CD

Provide an unlocked session to the job as BW_SESSION, then select the provider as usual:

$ export BW_SESSION="session-key-from-unlock"
$ secretspec run --provider bw:// -- deploy

Terminal window

Treat the session key as a CI secret and avoid printing it in job logs.

Security considerations

• BW_SESSION unlocks the vault for the lifetime of the session, and the session can access everything granted to the signed-in account. Keep the session key out of checked-in configuration and shell history.
• Scope provider URIs to the intended organization and collection when possible.
• For self-hosted installations, use ?server= as a guard against operating on a differently configured vault.
• Ambiguous item names fail instead of selecting one silently; rename them or use ?type= when the duplicates have different item types.

Troubleshooting

CLI installation

Bitwarden CLI (bw) is not installed.
To install it:  - npm: npm install -g @bitwarden/cli  - Homebrew: brew install bitwarden-cli  - Download: https://bitwarden.com/help/cli/

Server mismatch

When ?server= names a different server than the one the bw CLI is configured for, the operation stops before touching the vault and reports both addresses alongside the bw logout / bw config server / bw login / bw unlock sequence needed to correct it.

Last updated Oct 08, 2026