The Bitcoin Hardware Wallet Interface is a Python library and command line tool for interacting with hardware wallets. It provides a standard way for software to work with hardware wallets without needing to implement device specific drivers. Python software can use the provided library (hwilib). Software in other languages can execute the hwi tool.

Python 3 is required. The libraries and udev rules for each device must also be installed. Some libraries will need to be installed

For Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt install libusb-1.0-0-dev libudev-dev

For macOS:

brew install libusb

This project uses the Poetry dependency manager. Once HWI's source has been downloaded with git clone, it and its dependencies can be installed via poetry by execting the following in the root source directory:

poetry install

Pip can also be used to install all of the dependencies (in virtualenv or system):

pip3 install hidapi # HID API needed in general
pip3 install ecdsa
pip3 install pyaes
pip3 install typing_extensions
pip3 install mnemonic
pip3 install libusb1

git clone https://github.com/bitcoin-core/HWI.git
cd HWI

To use, first enumerate all devices and find the one that you want to use with

./hwi.py enumerate

Once the device type and device path is known, issue commands to it like so:

./hwi.py -t <type> -d <path> <command> <command args>

All output will be in JSON form and sent to stdout. Additional information or prompts will be sent to stderr and will not necessarily be in JSON. This additional information is for debugging purposes.

The below table lists what devices and features are supported for each device.

Please also see docs for additional information about each device.

See Using Bitcoin Core with Hardware Wallets.

This project is available under the MIT License, Copyright Andrew Chow.