secrets/CLAUDE.md

secrets

Encrypted env file sync between machines using age key-file encryption + a private git repo.

Quick Start

brew install age
./secrets init                    # Create ~/.secrets repo + generate age key
cd ~/my-project && ./secrets push # Encrypt .env* files, commit, push
# On other machine:
cd ~/my-project && ./secrets pull # Pull + decrypt .env* files

Testing

brew install bats-core
bats test/secrets.bats

Architecture

Single bash script (secrets) with subcommands: init, push, pull, list, rm, rekey.

• Encryption: age with key files (not passphrases — age passphrases are non-scriptable)
• Storage: Private git repo at ~/.secrets/
• Convention: Tracks .env, .env.*, and .dev.vars (not .envrc, .environment-*)
• Workspaces: --workspaces flag reads package.json workspaces, requires jq
• Safety: Pre-commit hook rejects plaintext secret files

Project Structure

secrets              # CLI script (~300 lines bash)
hooks/pre-commit     # Pre-commit hook template
test/
  secrets.bats       # bats-core test suite (25 tests)
  test_helper.bash   # Shared setup/teardown
README.md            # User-facing documentation
CLAUDE.md            # This file

Key file

~/.secrets/key.txt is the age identity (private key). It is gitignored and must be copied manually to each machine once.

Multi-store resolution

The active store directory is picked by resolve_store() using these rules, highest precedence first:

1. --store <dir> flag (parsed in the main pre-pass into STORE_OVERRIDE).
2. .secrets-store file in cwd or any ancestor, walk-up bounded by $HOME (never reads $HOME/.secrets-store itself or anything above).
3. SECRETS_DIR env var (legacy escape hatch).
4. ~/.secrets default.

resolve_store mutates BOTH SECRETS_DIR and KEY_FILE so the existing single-store code paths just work. STORE_SOURCE reports which rule won. _LAST_FOUND_AT (when rule 2 fires) holds the path of the file that was read.

.secrets-store parsing is deliberately conservative: first non-empty non-comment line wins, no shell expansion (no $VAR, $(), backticks). Bare names map via _expand_store_path: work → $HOME/.secrets-work, default → $HOME/.secrets.

Deploy Configuration

• Platform: NONE (distributed via git clone from GitHub)
• Production URL: N/A (no live service)
• Release model: merge to main is the release. Optionally tagged with v<X.Y.Z.W>.
• Verification after merge: a fresh git clone should produce a working secrets which against an isolated $HOME. No canary URL.
• Staging: none.
• Rollback: revert the merge commit on main (and delete the tag) to roll back.

Environment variable

SECRETS_DIR overrides the default ~/.secrets location (useful for testing). Per-project bindings via .secrets-store file beat this env var; use --store <dir> for one-shot overrides that beat everything.