A local password manager in Rust, compatible with pass
It started with a wait that bothered me
On Linux, I use Vicinae because Raycast isn’t available there. Vicinae supports its extension API, so I was using the Bitwarden extension.
Opening the vault and listing entries felt far too slow. Between the Bitwarden CLI and requests to the service, I kept waiting for something I wanted to look up immediately. I started looking for an alternative that worked with local data.
That’s how I found pass. I liked its approach of keeping passwords in GPG-encrypted files. I used it from the terminal, but when I added a Windows machine, I couldn’t get the workflow I wanted across both systems.
The Rust engine
I built rpass-cli to have that workflow on Windows, Linux and macOS. I kept compatibility with the pass format and left encryption to GnuPG.
The CLI can read and edit entries, import a store and produce TOTP codes. It also generates random passwords and passphrases using operating-system randomness. Entropy depends on the length and character set, or on the number of words and the size of the word list.
It respects pass’s .gpg-id files to determine who each entry is encrypted for. Multiple GPG recipients can be configured per folder, rather than using a single identity for the whole store.
Alongside terminal use, I added JSON responses and structured errors so other clients could use it.
A client without building another app
I like using the terminal, but I also wanted it to work for someone who wasn’t comfortable with it. Rather than build another desktop app, I made a client for Raycast and Vicinae on top of the same engine.
That lets me find an entry from the launcher while rpass-cli does the work underneath.
The same store across devices
I sync the store with Git. It can use a self-hosted server or any compatible remote, including Bitbucket, GitLab or GitHub. Sync is a separate operation; listing entries doesn’t need a remote API request.
The CLI runs on Windows, Linux and macOS. On iOS and Android, the same format lets you use pass-compatible clients. I use Pass for iOS on my phone.
What I use every day
In my daily use, listing entries is practically instant. That’s what I was after: looking up passwords locally and choosing where to keep and sync the encrypted files.