Passlane

A password manager and authenticator CLI using Keepass as the storage backend. In addition to passwords, it supports authenticator functionality with Timed One Time Passwords (TOTP), secure saving and managing of payment cards and secure notes.

Passlane uses the Keepass encrypted file format for storing the data.

Passlane is written in Rust.

Features

• Keepass storage format which allows you to use the vault with other Keepass compatible applications
  • Supports KDB, KDBX3 and KDBX4 file formats
  • The keepass storage file can be optionally secured using a key file to provide additional protection
• Generate and save passwords
• Add optional notes to credentials (useful when you have several accounts on the same service)
• Save and view payment card information
• Save and view secure notes
• Authenticator functionality with TOTP
• Import passwords from CSV files
• Export vault contents to CSV files
• Clipboard auto-clear: passwords are automatically cleared from the clipboard after 10 seconds
• --out flag for scripting: output passwords to stdout instead of the clipboard
• Shell tab completion for bash, zsh, and fish with dynamic service/username suggestions
• REPL mode (interactive mode)

Table of contents

• Interactive Mode (REPL)
• Installation
• Usage
  • Locking and unlocking the vault
  • Generating and saving passwords
  • Using saved credentials
  • Payment cards
  • Secure notes
  • Authenticator functionality
  • Migrating from 1Password, LastPass, Dashlane etc.
  • Import from CSV
  • Export to CSV
  • Scripting and Automation
  • Shell Completion
• Syncing data to your devices
• Other Keepass compatible applications

Interactive Mode (REPL)

The easiest way to get started with Passlane is to simply run it:

passlane

This launches an interactive session where you can use all of Passlane's features with short, easy-to-remember commands. If this is your first time, Passlane will walk you through creating a vault automatically.

🔐 Passlane — interactive mode
Type 'help' for commands, 'quit' to exit.

passlane> show user@
Found 3 credentials:
+---+------------------+---------------------+
|   | Service          | Username/email      |
+===+==================+=====================+
| 0 | github.com       | user@example.com    |
| 1 | google.com       | user@gmail.com      |
| 2 | aws.amazon.com   | user@company.com   |
+---+------------------+---------------------+
> To copy one of these passwords to clipboard, please enter a row number from the table above: 0
Unlocking vault...
Password copied to clipboard!

passlane> show github
Password copied to clipboard!

passlane> add card
Enter card name: ...

passlane> gen
kX9#mP2$vL5@nQ8w
Password copied to clipboard.

passlane> quit

Available REPL commands

Command	Description
show [type] [pattern]	Show entries (default: all credentials)
add [type]	Add a new entry (default: credential)
edit [type] [pattern]	Edit an existing entry
delete [type] [pattern]	Delete an entry
gen	Generate a random password
import <file>	Import credentials from a CSV file
export [type] <file>	Export entries to a CSV file
unlock [otp]	Store master password in keychain
lock	Remove master passwords from keychain
status	Show vault status
completions	Show how to install shell completions
help [command]	Show help for a command
quit / exit	Exit the session

Types: creds (default), cards, notes, otp — with aliases like cred, card, note, totp, payments, credentials.

The REPL supports tab completion for commands and types, and command history (up/down arrows) that persists across sessions.

Note: All REPL functionality is available as CLI subcommands (passlane show, passlane add, etc.). For example, to generate a password from the command line without entering the REPL, use passlane gen.

Installation

1. Download the latest release
2. Unpack the archive
3. Place the unarchived binary passlane to your $PATH

To compile from sources

1. Install rust development environment: rustup
2. Clone this repo
3. Run build: cargo build --release
4. Add the built passlane binary to your $PATH

Nix

Run with nix - following launches the interactive REPL:

nix run github:anssip/passlane

To generate a password directly:

nix run github:anssip/passlane -- gen

See below for more information on how to use the CLI.

Usage

First time setup

Run the init command to create a new vault file, or to link passlane to an existing Keepass compatible vault file. The command will interactively ask you for the required information.

passlane init

You place the vault file to the cloud allowing access from all your devices. See below for more info.

Keypass key file

In addition to the master password, you can use a key file to provide additional protection for the vault file. At this time, Passlane cannot be used to create a key file, but you can create one with KeepassXC or other Keepass compatible app. Once you have the file, configure the location of this file in the .keyfile_path file in the ~/.passlane/ directory.

Locking and unlocking the vault

Use the unlock command to store the master password in your computer's keychain. This way you don't have to enter the master password every time you access your passwords and other vault contents. On Macs you can then use biometric authentication to gain access to the keychain and further to the vault without typing any passwords.

passlane unlock

You can later remove the master password from the keychain with the lock command.

The one time passwords (OTPs) are stored in a separate vault file. You can unlock it with the same command accompanied with the -o option.

passlane unlock -o

To lock the vaults use the lock command. This locks both the password vault and the OTP vault:

passlane lock

To get help on the available commands:

➜ passlane -h

A password manager using Keepass as the storage backend.

Usage: passlane [COMMAND]

Commands:
  init    Initialize passlane. Walks you through the configuration process.
  add     Adds an item to the vault. Without arguments adds a new credential, use -p to add a payment card and -n to add a secure note.
  edit    Edit an entry.
  csv     Imports credentials from a CSV file.
  delete  Deletes one or more entries.
  show    Shows one or more entries.
  list    Lists entries from the vault for scripting and automation. WARNING: outputs passwords to stdout.
  lock    Lock the vaults to prevent all access
  unlock  Opens the vaults and grants access to the entries
  export  Exports the vault contents to a CSV file.
  gen     Generate a random password and copy it to the clipboard.
  repl    Launch the interactive REPL session.
  completions  Generate shell completions and save to ~/.passlane/. Shows the line to add to your shell rc file.
  help    Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)

Options:
  -h, --help  Print help

Generating and saving passwords

To generate a new password without saving it. The generated password value is copied to the clipboard and automatically cleared after 10 seconds. If you press Ctrl+C during the wait, the clipboard is cleared immediately before exiting.

passlane gen

To generate a password and print it to stdout without copying to the clipboard (useful for scripting):

passlane gen --out

To save new credentials by copying the password from clipboard:

passlane add --clipboard

To generate a new password and save credentials with one command:

passlane add -g

When adding credentials, you will be prompted for an optional note. This is useful for annotating entries, e.g., "work account" or "admin access".

Using saved credentials

You can search and show saved credentials with regular expressions

passlane show <regexp>

Run passlane show foobar.com → shows foobar.com's password and copies it to the clipboard. The clipboard is automatically cleared after 10 seconds. If you press Ctrl+C during the wait, the clipboard is cleared immediately before exiting.

To print the password to stdout instead of copying to the clipboard (useful for scripting):

passlane show <regexp> --out

If the search finds more than one matches:

➜  bin passlane show google
Unlocking vault...
Found 5 credentials:
+---+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------+
|   | Service                                  | Username/email                 |
+===+==========================================+================================+
| 0 | google.com                               | anssi@emmy.fi                  |
|   | 📝 personal         Modified: 23.10.2024 |                                |
|---+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| 1 | https://accounts.google.com/si           | anssi@amm.co.jp                |
|   | Modified: 23.04.2024 14:15               |                                |
|---+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| 2 | google.com                               | anssi.piirainen@flowplayer.com |
|   | 📝 work account  Modified: 23.04.2024    |                                |
|---+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| 3 | google.com                               | anssip                         |
|   | Modified: 23.04.2024 14:15               |                                |
|---+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------|
| 4 | google.com                               | anssi@carbon.video             |
|   | 📝 Carbon Video  Modified: 23.04.2024    |                                |
+---+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------+
? To copy one of these passwords to clipboard, please enter a row number from the table above
[Press q to exit without copying the password]

Each credential row shows the service and username on the first line, and an optional note (prefixed with 📝) along with the last modified date on the second line. Notes are useful for distinguishing between multiple accounts on the same service.

Payment cards

To list all your saved payment cards.

➜  bin passlane show -p
Unlocking vault...
Found 3 payment cards:
+---+-------------------------+------------+-------+--------+------------------+
|   | Name                    | Last 4     | Color | Expiry | Modified         |
+==============================================================================+
| 0 | OP Corporate Gold (NPD) | •••• 4821  | Gold  | 1/2029 | 23.10.2024 13:15 |
|---+-------------------------+------------+-------+--------+------------------|
| 1 | Binance                 | •••• 7703  | black | 4/2010 | 23.10.2024 13:15 |
|---+-------------------------+------------+-------+--------+------------------|
| 2 | Visa Gold (personal)    | •••• 9156  | Gold  | 6/2025 | 23.10.2024 13:15 |
+---+-------------------------+------------+-------+--------+------------------+
? To see card details, enter a row number from the table above
[Press q to exit without showing]

To save a payment card:

passlane add -p

You can delete a note with the delete command and the -n option.

Secure notes

You can also save and manage secure notes in Passlane. The contents of notes, the title and the note text itself, are all fully encrypted and only visible to you.

You can store multiline notes in the vault. To add a secure note:

passlane add -n

To delete secure notes:

passlane delete -n

To show secure notes:

passlane show -n

Authenticator functionality

By default, Passlane stores the Timed One Time Passwords in a file named totp.json in the ~/.passlane/ directory. You can change the location by storing the file path in a text file called .totp_vault_path in the ~/.passlane/ directory. We recommend that you store the file in a separate location that is different from the main vault file. This way you gain the benefit of two-factor authentication. You don't want to store these eggs in the same basket.

Here is an example where teh totp vault file is stored in Dropbox:

~/.passlane > cat .totp_vault_path
/Users/anssi/Dropbox/stuff/totp.kdbx

The TOTP vault has a separate master password that you need to enter when you access the one time passwords. You can also store the master password in your computer's keychain to avoid typing it every time. Use the unlock command with the -o option for this purpose.

passlane unlock -o

To add a new one time password authentication entry:

passlane add -o

Use -o to show the one time passwords. Following lists all OTP entries in the vault:

passlane show -o

To look up by name of the issuer, use the following command:

passlane show -o heroku

the output will be:

Unlocking TOTP vault...
Found 1 matching OTP authorizers:

Code 447091 (also copied to clipboard). Press q to exit.
Next code in 23 seconds
.......................
.......................
Code 942344 (also copied to clipboard). Press q to exit.
Next code in 30 seconds
..............................
...

Import from CSV

You can import credentials from a CSV file. With this approach, you can easily migrate from less elegant and often expensive commercial services.

First, make sure that the CSV file has a header line (1st line) with the following column titles:

• username
• password
• service
• note (optional)

The service field is the URL or name of the service. The note column is optional — if omitted, credentials will be imported without notes. When importing from Dashlane, the only necessary preparation is to rename url to service.

To export the credentials to a CSV file and import the file into Passlane:

passlane csv <path_to_csv_file>

Here are links to instructions for doing the CSV export:

• LastPass
• 1Password
• Dashlane

Export to CSV

You can export all your vault contents to CSV files. The exported files can be imported to other password managers or to a spreadsheet program.

To export credentials to a file called creds.csv

passlane export creds.csv

To export payment cards to a file called cards.csv.

passlane export -p cards.csv

To export secure notes to a file called notes.csv

passlane export -n notes.csv

Scripting and Automation

The list command provides machine-readable output for scripting and automation. Unlike show, it prints all matches to stdout without clipboard interaction or interactive prompts.

For quick single-password lookups in scripts, you can also use show --out or gen --out to print a password to stdout without clipboard interaction:

# Get a single password to stdout
passlane show github --out

# Generate a password to stdout
passlane gen --out

⚠️ Security Warning: The list command and --out flag output passwords and secrets to stdout. Be careful when redirecting output to files or using in scripts that log output.

# List all credentials
passlane list

# List credentials matching a regex
passlane list google

# List all credentials as JSON
passlane list --json

# List specific entry types
passlane list -p              # payment cards
passlane list -n              # secure notes
passlane list -o              # TOTP entries
passlane list -p --json       # payment cards as JSON

# Verbose plain text (includes passwords)
passlane list -v

Scripting Examples

Find duplicate passwords using jq:

passlane list --json | jq -r '
  .entries | group_by(.password) |
  map(select(length > 1) | {
    password: .[0].password,
    services: [.[].service]
  })
'

Extract credentials for a specific service:

CREDS=$(passlane list github --json)
USERNAME=$(echo "$CREDS" | jq -r '.entries[0].username')
PASSWORD=$(echo "$CREDS" | jq -r '.entries[0].password')
NOTE=$(echo "$CREDS" | jq -r '.entries[0].note // empty')

Export to another format:

passlane list --json | jq '.entries[] | {title: .service, username, password}' > export.json

Shell Completion

Passlane supports tab completion for bash, zsh, and fish. In addition to completing subcommands and flags, it provides dynamic completions that suggest service names and usernames from your vault.

Enabling shell completion

Run the completions command to generate and install the completion script for your shell:

# Auto-detect your shell
passlane completions

# Or specify the shell explicitly
passlane completions zsh
passlane completions bash
passlane completions fish

This saves the completion script to ~/.passlane/completions.<shell> and prints the source command to add to your shell rc file. For example, for zsh:

Completions saved to /Users/you/.passlane/completions.zsh

Add this line to ~/.zshrc:

  source "/Users/you/.passlane/completions.zsh"

Then restart your shell or run the command above.

Add the printed source line to your rc file (~/.zshrc, ~/.bashrc, or ~/.config/fish/config.fish), then restart your shell.

Tip: After upgrading Passlane, re-run passlane completions to regenerate the script with any new commands.

Dynamic completions

When your vault is unlocked, Passlane maintains a lightweight completion cache at ~/.passlane/.completion_cache containing service names and usernames (no passwords or secrets). This enables dynamic tab completions for show, edit, delete, and list commands.

The cache is automatically:

• Created when you run passlane unlock or any command that opens the vault
• Updated when you add, edit, delete, or import entries
• Refreshed when older than 7 days (if the vault is unlocked via keychain)
• Deleted when you run passlane lock

Examples

Complete subcommands:

$ passlane sh<TAB>
show

Complete flags:

$ passlane show -<TAB>
-p  -n  -o  -v  -c  --out

Complete service names and usernames from your vault:

$ passlane show gi<TAB>
github.com:alice@example.com    gitlab.com:bob@company.com

$ passlane show goo<TAB>
google.com:user@gmail.com    google.com:user@work.com

$ passlane edit git<TAB>
github.com:alice@example.com    gitlab.com:bob@company.com

$ passlane delete drop<TAB>
dropbox.com:user@example.com

When the vault is locked (cache file doesn't exist), completions fall back to subcommands and flags only — no service names are suggested.

Syncing data to your devices

You can place the vault file to a cloud storage service like Dropbox, Google Drive, or iCloud Drive. This way you can access your passwords from all your devices. By default, Passlane assumes that the file is located at ~/.passlane/store.kdbx. You can change the location by storing the file path in a text file called .vault_path at the ~/.passlane/ directory.

For example, this shows how John has stored the path /Users/john/Dropbox/Stuff/store.kdbx to the .vault_path file:

➜  ~ cat ~/.passlane/.vault_path
/Users/john/Dropbox/Stuff/store.kdbx

Other Keepass compatible applications

There are several other Keepass compatible applications that you can use to access the vault file:

• KeepassXC is a desktop application for Windows, macOS, and Linux
• KeepassXC-Browser
• KeePassium is a mobile application for iOS
• ... and many others