Storing Secrets and API keys

Wouldn't it be nice to store secret values like API keys, database passwords, and private keys directly in the source code? Of course, we can’t do that – it's horrifyingly insecure! (Unfortunately, it's also very common.)

Encore's built-in secrets manager makes it simple to store secrets in a secure way, and lets you use them in your program like regular variables.

When creating new environments, Encore automatically sets up secrets management using best practices for each cloud provider. See the infrastructure documentation for more details.

Defining secrets

With Encore you define secrets directly in your code by creating a struct:

var secrets struct {
    SSHPrivateKey string    // ed25519 private key for SSH server
    GitHubAPIToken string   // personal access token for deployments
    // ...
}

Then you set the secret value using encore secret set --type <types...> <secret-name>.

<types> defines which environment types the secret value applies to. Use a comma-separated list of production, development, preview, and local. Shorthands: prod, dev, pr.

For example encore secret set --type prod SSHPrivateKey sets the secret value for production environments,
and encore secret set --type dev,preview,local GitHubAPIToken sets the secret value for development, preview, and local environments.

For certain use cases it can be useful to define a secret for a specific environment instead of an environment type. You can do so with encore secret set --env <env-name> <secret-name>. Secret values for specific environments take precedence over values for environment types.

The values are stored safely using GCP's Key Management Service, and delivered securely directly to your application.

Using secrets

Once you've provided values for all the secrets, you can just use them in your program like a regular variable. For example:

func callGitHub(ctx context.Context) {
    req, _ := http.NewRequestWithContext(ctx, "GET", "https:///api.github.com/user", nil)
    req.Header.Add("Authorization", "token " + secrets.GitHubAPIToken)
    resp, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
    // ... handle err and resp
}

Secret keys are globally unique for your whole application; if multiple services use the same secret name they both receive the same secret value at runtime.