Key Vault - Browse Secrets, Certificates & Keys from Terminal

The Key Vault view lets you browse vaults and three kinds of vault objects — secrets, certificates, and keys — along with their version history. You can yank secret values to your clipboard, toggle an on-screen reveal, and create or delete objects of each kind.

Common tasks this replaces:

• az keyvault secret show to retrieve individual secret values
• Opening Azure Portal to browse secret version history
• Writing scripts to export multiple secrets for local development
• Manually copying secret values from the portal (which displays them on screen)

Pane layout

Vaults → Kind → Items → Versions

The Kind column is a fixed three-row chooser between Secrets, Certificates, and Keys. Selecting a row drives which collection the items column renders; the rest of the view (action menu, versions column, inspect strip) follows.

Focus moves between panes with Tab / Shift+Tab. Press Enter or l to drill in, and h or Left to go back.

Browsing items

Select a vault to load the kind picker, pick a kind to load its items, and press Enter on an item to see its version history. Versions are listed with their creation date and status (enabled / disabled).

Yanking secret values

Press y on a secret or version to fetch its value and copy it to your clipboard. The value is never displayed on screen — it goes straight to the clipboard and a confirmation toast appears.

For bulk export, mark multiple secrets with Space or visual-line mode (v), then open the action menu (a) and select Yank marked as JSON. This fetches all marked secret values and copies them as a JSON object to your clipboard.

Revealing values on screen

Press R (default keymap) or Alt+R (standard) to fetch the secret value and render it in-place. If the inspect strip is hidden it opens automatically; the value lands inline and stays visible until you toggle reveal off again (the strip stays open with the value masked), navigate to a different vault, or switch subscription. Reveal only applies to the cursor’s secret or version — it does not bulk-reveal marked items.

Reveal is convenient for sanity checks, but the value enters terminal scrollback — clear it (or your scrollback) if you’d rather it not stick around.

Creating, deleting & importing

The action menu (a) on the items column exposes write operations that vary by the active kind:

Kind	Actions
Secrets	Create secret…, Add new version… (versions pane), Delete secret…
Certificates	Import certificate…, Delete certificate…
Keys	Create key…, Delete key…

Create secret opens a two-field form: a Name (1–127 chars, letters/digits/hyphens) and a Value. The value field is masked while you type — press Ctrl+R to toggle reveal. Submitting calls Azure’s SetSecret, which creates a new secret or — if a secret with that name already exists — adds a new version. Add new version is the same form without the name field for an existing secret.

Import certificate opens a local file browser to pick a PFX file (other extensions are rejected with a notification), then prompts for a name and (optional) password.

Create key opens a two-field form: name and algorithm (one of RSA-2048, RSA-3072, RSA-4096, EC-P256, EC-P384, EC-P521 — defaults to RSA-2048).

Delete operations confirm before calling Azure’s soft-delete — items move to the vault’s recovery bin and can be purged or recovered through the Azure CLI / portal. The list refreshes automatically after each write.

Selecting secrets

Mark individual secrets with Space, or use visual-line mode for ranges:

1. Press v to enter visual-line mode on the secrets pane.
2. Move the cursor to extend the selection. Press o to swap the anchor.
3. Press v again or Esc to commit the range to marks.

Marked secrets can be bulk-yanked through the action menu. Marking is only wired up on the Secrets kind today.

Inspect panel

Press K to toggle the inspect strip. It renders a fixed set of labelled fields for the current selection — vault (name / subscription / resource group / URI), kind row, item (name + properties), or version — and shows revealed values inline.

Actions

Press a to open the action menu. Available actions depend on which pane and which kind is focused.

Secrets — items pane

Action	Description
Yank secret name	Copy the secret name to clipboard
Yank secret value	Fetch and copy the secret value to clipboard
Reveal / Hide secret value	Toggle on-screen reveal in the inspect strip
Create secret…	Open a two-field form (creates or adds a new version)
Delete secret…	Soft-delete the secret under the cursor
Toggle mark	Mark or unmark the current secret
Toggle visual line selection	Enter or exit visual-line mode
Yank marked as JSON (N)	Fetch all marked secrets and copy as JSON (shown when marks exist)
Clear all marks	Remove all marks (shown when marks exist)

Secrets — versions pane

Action	Description
Yank version value	Fetch and copy a specific version’s value to clipboard
Reveal / Hide version value	Toggle on-screen reveal of the version’s value
Add new version…	Add a new version to the current secret

Certificates — items pane

Action	Description
Import certificate…	Pick a PFX file and import it as a new certificate
Delete certificate…	Soft-delete the certificate under the cursor

Keys — items pane

Action	Description
Create key…	Open a form to create a new key
Delete key…	Soft-delete the key under the cursor

Any pane

Action	Description
Refresh	Reload the current scope
Toggle details panel	Show or hide the inspect strip
Change subscription	Open the subscription picker
Open theme picker	Open the theme picker (standalone only)
Toggle help	Open or close the help overlay (standalone only)

Keybindings

Key	Action
Tab / Shift+Tab	Cycle pane focus
Enter / l	Open / drill in
h / Left	Go back
/	Filter focused pane
Ctrl+D / Ctrl+U	Half-page scroll
a	Action menu
y	Yank secret value to clipboard
R	Toggle on-screen reveal
Space	Toggle mark (secrets)
v / V	Visual-line selection (secrets)
K	Toggle inspect panel
S	Switch subscription
r	Refresh current scope
d	Reload subscriptions
T	Theme picker
? / F1	Help
N	Notifications history
F	Activity overlay