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ilpianista 0.4.0 is a lightweight open-source utility that bridges Windows Subsystem for Linux and the Windows Credential Manager by acting as a custom ssh-add helper. Written in Rust, the tool intercepts passphrase requests made inside WSL sessions and, instead of prompting the user each time, securely retrieves the corresponding SSH key passphrase that has previously been stored in the Windows Credential Manager (wincred). This eliminates the repetitive password entry normally required when an SSH agent is started inside WSL, while still keeping the secret in an encrypted Windows store rather than inside the Linux filesystem. Typical use cases include developers who run Git, Ansible, or rsync from within Ubuntu, Debian, or openSUSE distributions running under WSL1 or WSL2 and who want their SSH keys to remain unlocked for the Windows logon session without resorting to unencrypted keys or third-party GUI tools. Installation consists of placing the single executable in the WSL PATH and adding two lines to the shell profile so that SSH_ASKPASS and SSH_ASKPASS_REQUIRE point to the helper; thereafter ssh-add once again asks for the passphrase only on first use, after which the credential is reused automatically. Because the helper speaks the minimal ssh-askpass protocol, it is compatible with any Linux tool that relies on OpenSSH and respects the SSH_ASKPASS environment variable. The 0.4.0 release is the first public version, published under the MIT license and distributed as a statically linked x86-64 binary with no further runtime dependencies. ilpianista is available for free on get.nero.com, with downloads provided via trusted Windows package sources such as winget, always delivering the latest version, and supporting batch installation of multiple applications.
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