Managing secrets

Agents often need passwords, API keys, and tokens to do their work. Secrets hold these values so they reach the agent that needs them — and nothing else: never the chat history, never the logs, never another person.

Three kinds

	Local: workflow	Local: yours	Global
Added by	You, on one workflow	You, for yourself	An admin, for everyone
Lives	Sealed in that workflow's store	Sealed in your store (+ your browser)	Server memory, from its environment
Used by	That workflow, when you select it	Runs where you select it	Every run, automatically
Good for	A database password one flow needs	Your personal API keys	Company-wide keys and configs

"Local" means yours: sealed with your identity, so nobody else's run can open them. "Global" means the deployment's: set by an admin, available platform-wide.

How a secret travels

Sealed at restEncrypted with AES-256-GCM before it is stored. Local secrets are bound to your identity — another person's run can't decrypt them.

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Selected, not sprayedLocal secrets go only where you tick them. Global ones ride every run by design.

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Injected at runtimeDecrypted in memory at the moment of use, handed to that run only, never written to history or logs.

The server reads the deployment's master secret once at startup, then drops it from its own environment — so even a process listing the server's environment won't find it. Names travel freely (you pick "DB_PASSWORD" from a list); values only ever move sealed or straight into the run that needs them.

What each person sees

Server

Seals and opens secrets.
Knows every name, guards every value.
Global values live in its memory only.

Alice

✓ Her secrets' names and values
✓ Her workflows' secrets
✓ Global names (values masked)
✗ Bob's secrets entirely

Bob

✓ His secrets' names and values
✓ His workflows' secrets
✓ Global names (values masked)
✗ Alice's secrets entirely

Alice and Bob both see the name DB_PASSWORD if it's global — but only the runs it is injected into ever hold the value, and nobody's screen or log file shows it.

Rotation

Change the value where it lives — edit your secret, or ask an admin to update a global one — and new runs pick it up. Runs already in flight keep only the old value until they end.

Secrets are for values agents use. The AI logins agents run as (Claude, Codex, Cursor) work the same sealed way but are managed separately — see Provider credentials.

Related: Secrets (technical reference), Provider credentials, Security overview.