skills/secret-hygiene/SKILL.md

name, description

name

description

secret-hygiene

Prevent agent sessions from rendering credentials into the transcript, and recover safely when one leaks. Load BEFORE any command that touches credentials - kubectl exec/env/describe, kubectl get secret, whole-file SOPS decryption, token generation or rotation, envFrom inspection, or edits to encrypted config. Also load when a credential has already been exposed and a rotation chain is needed. Triggers - "rotate this token", "decrypt the config", "check the env var", "leaked credential", "did that print a secret", "why is this secret wrong".

Secret hygiene for agent sessions

Goal: stop the recurring leak pattern where a diagnostic command renders a SOPS-encrypted value or a Kubernetes Secret value into the session transcript, forcing a rotation.

Confirmed past leaks (see mathias/infra#39 rotation umbrella):

• POSTGRES_PASSWORD — kubectl exec ... env rendered envFrom value
• INFRA_MCP_TOKEN — sops -d ingress.enc.yaml rendered the bearer in the configuration-snippet
• brain_app postgres DSN — pre-fix ingestion pod log (hyperguild#20)

Three are pattern, not bug.

Rules — never do these

Forbidden	Why	Use instead
kubectl exec <pod> -- env (or printenv)	Renders every envFrom + valueFrom.secretKeyRef plaintext	kubectl describe pod <pod> — k8s redacts secretKeyRef in describe
sops -d <file> to inspect	Whole-file decrypt dumps everything	sops --extract '["key"]' <file> for pinpoint reads
kubectl get secret ... -o jsonpath='{.data}' (whole map)	Returns base64 of every key; trivial to b64-decode the lot	... -o jsonpath='{.data.SPECIFIC_KEY}' for the one key needed
Echoing a generated token to verify length / content	Renders the new token into transcript, defeating the rotation	Verify functionally: curl ... -H "Authorization: Bearer $(cat /tmp/tokfile)" — never echo $NEW_TOK
Storing a token in a shell variable then running echo / set / env	Same as above	Pipe through file (mode 600) or stdin to the next consumer

Rules — do these instead

• Verify by side-effect, not by value. If a token rotation should make the old token return 401 and the new one return 200, test those two HTTP responses. Never check $OLD == $LEAKED by printing it.
• Pinpoint SOPS reads. When you need ONE key from a SOPS file, always sops --extract '["..."]'. The shape of the key path is safe to log; the value isn't.
• Stash tokens in /dev/shm/<unique> mode 600 and pass via filename, not env. shred -u after use. Avoid /tmp if the system has /dev/shm.
• If you must dump a secret to confirm wiring, immediately rotate it in the same commit train. Treat the dump as "this is now compromised".

Rotation chain pattern when a token is already exposed

If a token was leaked in a prior step of the same session, chain two rotations:

1. T1: replace the leaked value with a new one. The verification step may also leak T1 (acceptable risk).
2. T2: replace T1 with a fresh value. Run this without any decrypt step that emits to stdout. The new value lives only in the encrypted file + the consumer's secret store (~/.llmkeys, the k8s Secret).

Example T2 path (Python, never decrypts to stdout):

new_t2 = subprocess.check_output(["openssl","rand","-hex","32"]).decode().strip()
plaintext = subprocess.check_output(["sops","-d", path]).decode()   # in-memory only
patched = re.sub(r'Bearer [a-f0-9]+(?=")', f"Bearer {new_t2}", plaintext)
# write patched via /dev/shm tmp + sops -e → write back
# DO NOT print(patched), DO NOT print(new_t2)

After T2 lands via GitOps + Flux, update consumers from the file stash without echoing.

Detection ideas (not blocking — telemetry)

• Add a bash pre-hook in Claude harness that refuses obvious patterns (kubectl exec * env*, sops -d *.enc.yaml). Filed as a follow-up.
• Run a periodic grep over ~/.claude/projects/*/sessions/*.jsonl for high-entropy strings matching [a-f0-9]{32,} to catch new leak surface.

Reference

• gitea.d-ma.be/mathias/infra#39 — umbrella credential rotation issue with confirmed-leak roster.
• gitea.d-ma.be/mathias/infra#44 — POSTGRES_PASSWORD rotation procedure (template for future incidents).