Secrets Management

Secure secrets management practices for CI/CD pipelines using Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, and other tools.

Purpose

Implement secure secrets management in CI/CD pipelines without hardcoding sensitive information.

When to Use

• Store API keys and credentials
• Manage database passwords
• Handle TLS certificates
• Rotate secrets automatically
• Implement least-privilege access

Secrets Management Tools

HashiCorp Vault

• Centralized secrets management
• Dynamic secrets generation
• Secret rotation
• Audit logging
• Fine-grained access control

AWS Secrets Manager

• AWS-native solution
• Automatic rotation
• Integration with RDS
• CloudFormation support

Azure Key Vault

• Azure-native solution
• HSM-backed keys
• Certificate management
• RBAC integration

Google Secret Manager

• GCP-native solution
• Versioning
• IAM integration

HashiCorp Vault Integration

Setup Vault

# Start Vault dev server
vault server -dev

# Set environment
export VAULT_ADDR='http://127.0.0.1:8200'
export VAULT_TOKEN='root'

# Enable secrets engine
vault secrets enable -path=secret kv-v2

# Store secret
vault kv put secret/database/config username=admin password=secret

GitHub Actions with Vault

name: Deploy with Vault Secrets

on: [push]

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Import Secrets from Vault
        uses: hashicorp/vault-action@v2
        with:
          url: https://vault.example.com:8200
          token: ${{ secrets.VAULT_TOKEN }}
          secrets: |
            secret/data/database username | DB_USERNAME ;
            secret/data/database password | DB_PASSWORD ;
            secret/data/api key | API_KEY

      - name: Use secrets
        run: |
          echo "Connecting to database as $DB_USERNAME"
          # Use $DB_PASSWORD, $API_KEY

GitLab CI with Vault

deploy:
  image: vault:1.17
  before_script:
    - export VAULT_ADDR=https://vault.example.com:8200
    - export VAULT_TOKEN=$VAULT_TOKEN
    - apk add curl jq
  script:
    - |
      DB_PASSWORD=$(vault kv get -field=password secret/database/config)
      API_KEY=$(vault kv get -field=key secret/api/credentials)
      echo "Deploying with secrets..."
      # Use $DB_PASSWORD, $API_KEY

AWS Secrets Manager

Store Secret

aws secretsmanager create-secret \
  --name production/database/password \
  --secret-string "super-secret-password"

Retrieve in GitHub Actions

- name: Configure AWS credentials
  uses: aws-actions/configure-aws-credentials@v4
  with:
    aws-access-key-id: ${{ secrets.AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
    aws-secret-access-key: ${{ secrets.AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
    aws-region: us-west-2

- name: Get secret from AWS
  run: |
    SECRET=$(aws secretsmanager get-secret-value \
      --secret-id production/database/password \
      --query SecretString \
      --output text)
    echo "::add-mask::$SECRET"
    echo "DB_PASSWORD=$SECRET" >> $GITHUB_ENV

- name: Use secret
  run: |
    # Use $DB_PASSWORD
    ./deploy.sh

Terraform with AWS Secrets Manager

data "aws_secretsmanager_secret_version" "db_password" {
  secret_id = "production/database/password"
}

resource "aws_db_instance" "main" {
  allocated_storage    = 100
  engine              = "postgres"
  instance_class      = "db.t3.large"
  username            = "admin"
  password            = jsondecode(data.aws_secretsmanager_secret_version.db_password.secret_string)["password"]
}

GitHub Secrets

Organization/Repository Secrets

- name: Use GitHub secret
  env:
    API_KEY: ${{ secrets.API_KEY }}
    DATABASE_URL: ${{ secrets.DATABASE_URL }}
  run: |
    # Secrets are injected as env vars — never print them to logs
    ./deploy.sh

Environment Secrets

deploy:
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  environment: production
  steps:
    - name: Deploy
      env:
        PROD_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.PROD_API_KEY }}
      run: |
        # Secret injected as env var — never print to logs
        ./deploy.sh

GitLab CI/CD Variables

Project Variables

deploy:
  script:
    - echo "Deploying with $API_KEY"
    - echo "Database: $DATABASE_URL"

Protected and Masked Variables

• Protected: Only available in protected branches
• Masked: Hidden in job logs
• File type: Stored as file

Best Practices

1. Never commit secrets to Git

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