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What is crowbar?

aaron1011/crowbar — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-07-18 · repo last pushed 2020-08-28

Audience · ops devopsComplexity · 2/5DormantSetup · moderate

In one sentence

Crowbar gets you temporary AWS credentials through your company's identity provider so you never have to store long-lived AWS keys on your laptop.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((crowbar))
    What it does
      Temporary AWS credentials
      SAML authentication
      No stored keys
    Tech stack
      Rust
      SAML
      AWS
    Use cases
      Secure AWS access
      Team credential hygiene
      MFA login
    Audience
      Ops teams
      Developers
    Providers
      Okta
      JumpCloud

Code map

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filefunction / class

What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Get short-lived AWS credentials through Okta or JumpCloud instead of storing long-lived keys.

USE CASE 2

Give a team fresh temporary AWS access each session to reduce leaked-key risk.

USE CASE 3

Pick from multiple AWS roles available through your identity provider during login.

USE CASE 4

Store your password securely in the OS credential vault instead of a config file.

What is it built with?

RustAWSSAML

How does it compare?

aaron1011/crowbar0verflowme/alarm-clock0verflowme/seclists
Language—CSS—
Last pushed2020-08-282022-10-032020-05-03
MaintenanceDormantDormantDormant
Setup difficultymoderateeasyeasy
Complexity2/52/51/5
Audienceops devopsvibe coderops devops

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Requires an Okta or JumpCloud identity provider set up by your organization.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Show me how to set up Crowbar with Okta to get temporary AWS credentials.
Prompt 2
Explain how Crowbar's SAML authentication flow gets AWS credentials without storing passwords.
Prompt 3
Help me install Crowbar via Homebrew and configure my first AWS profile.
Prompt 4
Walk me through switching my team from long-lived AWS keys to Crowbar's temporary credentials.

Frequently asked questions

What is crowbar?

Crowbar gets you temporary AWS credentials through your company's identity provider so you never have to store long-lived AWS keys on your laptop.

Is crowbar actively maintained?

Dormant — no commits in 2+ years (last push 2020-08-28).

How hard is crowbar to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is crowbar for?

Mainly ops devops.

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