---
title: "unlock"
description: "Unlock an existing wallet by decrypting its on-disk seed and starting the wallet subsystem."
canonical: https://wavelength.lightning.engineering/cli/unlock/
---

> Docs index: https://wavelength.lightning.engineering/llms.txt

# unlock

Decrypts the on-disk wallet seed and starts the wallet subsystem, making the wallet RPCs usable. Like `create`, the password is never accepted on the command line: it is read from stdin, the `WAVED_WALLET_PASSWORD` environment variable, or `--wallet_password_file`.

```bash
echo -n 'hunter2hunter2' | wavecli unlock
```

## Flags

| Flag                     | Default | Description                                    |
| ------------------------ | ------- | ---------------------------------------------- |
| `--wallet_password_file` | (none)  | Path to a file containing the wallet password. |

## Example

```bash
echo -n 'hunter2hunter2' | wavecli --no-tls unlock
```

```json
{
  "identity_pubkey": "02a1b2c3d4e5f60718293a4b5c6d7e8f90a1b2c3d4e5f60718293a4b5c6d7e8f90"
}
```

A wrong password exits with code `3` (auth failure) and a `WALLET_LOCKED` error envelope on stderr.

## Underlying RPC

Calls [`WalletService.Unlock`](/api/wallet/unlock/).