Manage Secrets

The current secret provider uses a SOPS-encrypted JSON document and host credentials, keeping the decryption key outside the workspace VM.

[secrets.providers.project]
kind = "sops"
file = "secrets.json"

The path is relative to the workspace configuration directory and defaults to secrets.json. The decrypted document must be an object with string values. Use Workspace → Settings → Secrets to reveal, set, or delete values.

Initialize Developer-Service Tokens

The workspace creation page can install GitHub CLI (gh) or GitLab CLI (glab) and initialize its token. Use a GitHub token with read-only permissions or a GitLab token with the read_api scope. Tascarrel cannot validate the token’s authority without contacting the provider, so the selected permissions remain your responsibility.

Hostd selects $HOME/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub, falling back to $HOME/.ssh/id_rsa.pub, and writes the corresponding SSH recipient into .sops.yaml. It encrypts the values into secrets.json and verifies a decrypting round trip before atomically publishing the workspace. The matching private-key file must therefore be usable non-interactively by hostd. SOPS’s SSH-key support cannot decrypt through ssh-agent alone.

The generated GH_TOKEN or GITLAB_TOKEN environment value is only a placeholder. Explicit HTTP rules replace that placeholder after a matching request leaves the VM. GitHub’s rule admits POST because gh uses GraphQL for read operations; the token’s provider permissions enforce the read-only boundary.

Expose a Process Variable

[env]
API_TOKEN = "${secrets.project.API_TOKEN}"

Environment interpolation deliberately exposes plaintext to workspace processes. The value is resolved at workspace startup, so provider or reference configuration changes require a restart.

Use Secretless HTTP Authentication

Keep the credential value on the host by sending a placeholder:

[[network.secret-injection]]
host = "api.example.com"
methods = ["GET", "HEAD"]
header = "authorization"
placeholder = "replace-with-api-token"
secret = "project.API_TOKEN"

Tascarrel replaces the placeholder in matching GET and HEAD HTTP/1.1 requests after they leave the workspace, so the credential never enters the workspace VM. It rejects other methods for api.example.com at the host proxy. HTTPS uses a per-workspace CA installed into common certificate bundles.

Set header whenever possible; otherwise, Tascarrel checks every eligible non-routing header. Every injection rule must list at least one syntactically valid, case-sensitive HTTP method. Host rules accept an exact name or *.example.com pattern. When several rules match a host, a method is admitted if at least one of those rules lists it, and only rules listing that method can inject. Updating a value in an existing provider takes effect on the next matching request without restarting the VM.

Authenticate a Tasci Endpoint

Configure Tasci endpoint authorization under Workspace → Settings → Tasci. The endpoint refers to a host-owned provider and secret instead of storing the token in settings.json.

Tascarrel resolves the token when starting or changing a Tasci model and passes the complete authorization header only to that pod’s private Tasci process. Unlike HTTP secret injection, the credential therefore enters the workspace VM and selected pod.