Manage crypto keys can be a burden, making sure they don’t get stolen, lost, or having them backed up for when you need to setup that shiny new laptop that you now have because your old one died. With this SSH agent feature, you can now store your SSH keys in your Bitwarden vault.

If you use Bitwarden from the macOS store.

export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=~/Library/Containers/com.bitwarden.desktop/Data/.bitwarden-ssh-agent.sock

If you use the Disk Image or Brew version.

export SSH_AUTH_SOCK=~/.bitwarden-ssh-agent.sock

Set the variable accordingly. Then enable the SSH agent feature.

Enable SSH Agent

With the release of Bitwarden 2025.1.2 or newer, comes with built-in SSH agent feature. The feature is off by defaullt, so it’s opt-in. To enable the SSH agent feature, navigate to Settings and Enable SSH agent.

Create or Add SSH Key to Bitwarden

Create a new SSH key or import an existing private-public key pair.

This can be done using SSH key under the Types heading in the sidebar.

List Keys

Once you’ve set the environment variable SSH_AUTH_SOCK, the command ssh-add -L will list the available certificates.

256 SHA256:0R5gr0NF2C68tVJ5ceGG0EgLKKr9xi8pD7p2z+sXITc Test (ED25519)

Use SSH Key

If you don’t already know how to make use of your SSH keys with Git, head on over to the Bitwarden Support site. They have detail articles on how you can use SSH keys for Use SSH key to authenticate with Git or Configure Git for SSH signing.