GitHub repository secrets

The GitHub repository sync destination allows Vault to safely synchronize secrets as GitHub repository action secrets. This is a low footprint option that enables your applications to benefit from Vault-managed secrets without requiring them to connect directly with Vault. This guide walks you through the configuration process.

Prerequisites:

Ability to read or create KVv2 secrets
Ability to create GitHub fine-grained or personal tokens with access to modify repository secrets
Ability to create sync destinations and associations on your Vault server

Setup

To get started with syncing Vault secrets to your GitHub repository, you will need an access token which has access to the repository you want to manage secrets for and write permissions on the repository's actions secrets. In the list of GitHub permissions, this is simply called "Secrets". Choosing this will automatically include read-only Metadata.

Configure a sync destination with the access token created in the previous step.

$ vault write sys/sync/destinations/gh/my-dest \
    access_token="$ACCESS_TOKEN" \
    repository_owner="$OWNER" \
    repository_name="$NAME"

Output:

Key                   Value
---                   -----
connection_details    map[access_token:***** repository_owner:<owner> repository_name:<name>]
name                  my-dest
type                  gh

Usage

If you do not already have a KVv2 secret to sync, mount a new KVv2 secrets engine.

$ vault secrets enable -path=my-kv kv-v2

Output:

Success! Enabled the kv-v2 secrets engine at: my-kv/

Create secrets you wish to sync with a target GitHub repository for Actions.

$ vault kv put -mount='my-kv' my-secret foo='bar'

Output:

==== Secret Path ====
my-kv/data/my-secret

======= Metadata =======
Key                Value
---                -----
created_time       <timestamp>
custom_metadata    <nil>
deletion_time      n/a
destroyed          false
version            1

Create an association between the destination and a secret to synchronize.

$ vault write sys/sync/destinations/gh/my-dest/associations/set \
    mount=my-kv \
    secret_name=my-secret

Output:

Key                   Value
---                   -----
associated_secrets    map[kv_1234/my-secret:map[accessor:kv_1234 secret_name:my-secret sync_status:SYNCED updated_at:<timestamp>>]]
store_name            my-dest
store_type            gh

Navigate to your GitHub repository settings to confirm your secret was successfully created.

Moving forward, any modification on the Vault secret will be propagated in near real time to its GitHub repository secrets counterpart. Creating a new secret version in Vault will create a new version in GitHub. Deleting the secret or the association in Vault will delete the secret in GitHub as well.

Security

Note

GitHub only supports single value secrets, so KVv2 secrets from Vault will be stored as a JSON string. In the example above, the value for secret "my-secret" will be synced to GitHub as the JSON string {"foo":"bar"}.

It is strongly advised to mask individual values for each sub-key to prevent the unintended disclosure of secrets in any GitHub Action outputs. The following snippet illustrates how to mask each secret values:

name: Mask synced secret values

on:
  workflow_dispatch

jobs:
  synced-secret-examples:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: ✓ Mask synced secret values
        run: |
          for v in $(echo '${{ secrets.VAULT_KV_1234_MY_SECRET }}' | jq -r '.[]'); do
            echo "::add-mask::$v"
          done

API

Please see the secrets sync API for more details.