Stop Putting Secrets in .env Files

(jonmagic.com)

30 points | by veverkap 12 hours ago ago

13 comments

  • theozero 8 hours ago ago

    You will probably really like https://varlock.dev

    It’s a whole toolkit for this - with built in validation, type safety, and extra protection for sensitive secrets.

  • sudahtigabulan 3 hours ago ago

    > They sit on disk as plaintext, readable by any process running as your user

    The proposed solution:

    > Instead of loading secrets from a file, you use a wrapper script that fetches secrets from a secure store and injects them as environment variables into your process

    Now they sit "on disk" as plaintext, in /proc/self/environ, still readable by any process running as your user.

  • 3 hours ago ago
    [deleted]
  • 7 hours ago ago
    [deleted]
  • prognostikos 6 hours ago ago

    It may be marked as Beta, but I've been using https://developer.1password.com/docs/environments/ since October-ish with no issues.

    • hollow-moe 4 hours ago ago

      I'm pretty sure this uses FIFO under the hood, that's a smart idea !

  • mahaekoh 6 hours ago ago

    Mfw typing the command stores the password in plaintext in my shell history

    • embedding-shape 4 hours ago ago

      Prefix your entire command with a space, usually prevents saving it to the history file.

      Usually I do ^ while setting it as a variable, then I can still save the regular command to the history without the secret.

  • theden 8 hours ago ago

    So the solution is to use a proprietary password manager instead? No thanks

  • hebetude 8 hours ago ago

    People still code on their local boxes? op is not biometric secured over an ssh tunnel

    • hyperman1 3 hours ago ago

      2 hour train ride with flaky internet. Yes we do.

  • bibstha 5 hours ago ago

    Nice. One more benefit of this is when using LLM tools like Claude Code or Codex to do something and run tests on a worktree, this solution would work seamlessly.