Coder powers secure, scalable development across key industries — automotive, finance, government, and technology — enabling faster builds, tighter compliance, and seamless AI adoption in enterprise-grade cloud environments.
User secrets let you store secret values in Coder and make them available in
every workspace you own.
Note
User secrets are in Beta and may change. For more information, see
feature stages.
How user secrets work
Each user secret has:
A name, used to manage the secret with the CLI or REST API.
A value, which contains the sensitive content.
An optional description.
An optional environment variable target, file target, or both.
A secret without an environment variable target or file target is stored, but is
not injected into workspaces.
User secrets apply to all workspaces that you own.
Secret values are omitted from CLI output and REST API responses after you
create or update them.
Warning
Anyone with shell or file access to a workspace can read secrets injected into
that workspace. Do not share a workspace that has injected secrets with users
who should not access those values.
How your secrets reach a workspace
Coder applies your secrets when your workspace starts. The same applies any
time the workspace agent reconnects to Coder, for example after the workspace
or the agent restarts. To pick up a change to a secret while a workspace is
running, restart the workspace.
Environment variable secrets
Coder injects environment variable secrets into every new shell, terminal,
app, SSH session, and startup script that you start in your workspace.
Existing shells and processes keep the environment they were given when they
started.
If you...
...then in your workspace
Create or update an env secret
The change applies after the next workspace start. Until then, your running workspace continues to use the secrets it had when it last started.
Rename the env var (--env NEW_NAME)
After the next workspace start, new shells get NEW_NAME and the old name is no longer set.
Clear the env target (--env "") or delete the secret
After the next workspace start, the variable is no longer injected.
To pick up a change in a long-running shell or app started after a restart,
restart that shell or app.
File secrets
Coder writes file secrets to your workspace filesystem when the workspace
starts, before any startup scripts run. New parent directories are created as
needed. If the file already exists, Coder overwrites the contents and leaves
the existing permissions alone.
If you...
...then in your workspace
Create or update a file secret
The file is written or overwritten at the next workspace start.
Change the file path (--file NEW_PATH)
At the next workspace start, a file is written at NEW_PATH. The file at the previous path stays on disk with its old value.
Clear the file target (--file "") or delete the secret
The previously-written file stays on disk with its last value.
Important
Coder never deletes secret files it has written for you. If you remove a
secret, change its file path, or clear the file target, the previous file
stays in your workspace until you delete it. To remove a stale file, open
a terminal in your workspace and run rm <path>. Rebuilding the workspace
may clear stale files when your template recreates the filesystem.
If you set two file secrets that resolve to the same absolute path (for
example ~/config and /home/coder/config), only one of them ends up on
disk; the workspace agent logs a warning to help spot this. Use
distinct paths to avoid the collision.
Limits
User secrets are subject to the following limits. Coder enforces these when you
create or update a secret and rejects the request with an explanatory 400 when
you exceed one. Delete or shrink an existing secret to make room.
Cap
Value
Total secrets per user
50
Combined stored value bytes per user
200 KiB
Combined stored env-injected value bytes
24 KiB
Per-secret value bytes
24 KiB
Env var name length
256 bytes
Only secrets created with --env count against the env-injected budget. Coder
injects these into the workspace agent's process environment, which on Windows
has a ~32 KiB total budget. The 24 KiB ceiling leaves room for Coder's own
variables (CODER_*, PATH, HOME, ...) plus any template-defined env. To
inject a value larger than this budget, use --file instead; file secrets do
not count against the env budget.
The per-secret cap matches the env aggregate cap because a value larger than
the env aggregate could never be injected successfully as an environment
variable.
These caps measure stored bytes, which is what Coder writes to the database.
In deployments with secret encryption enabled, stored bytes exceed the raw
value.
Create a secret
You can create, edit, and delete user secrets in the Coder dashboard. Click your
avatar, select Account, then select Secrets.
Use coder secret create <name> to create a user secret. For sensitive values,
provide the value through non-interactive stdin with a pipe or redirect. This
keeps the value out of your shell history and process arguments.
Create an environment variable secret
Use --env to inject a secret into your workspaces as an environment variable.
The secret is available under the environment variable name you provide. User
secret environment variables take precedence over template-defined environment
variables with the same name, including variables set with coder_env.
On Windows workspaces, prefer ~/... paths. They resolve to your Windows
user profile directory. Paths starting with / are accepted but resolve
to the root of the workspace's current drive, which is template dependent.
Create a secret with environment variable and file targets
You can inject the same secret as both an environment variable and a file:
For sensitive values, prefer stdin because --value can expose the secret in
shell history or process arguments.
Stdin is read verbatim. If the source file ends with a trailing newline, Coder
stores that newline as part of the secret value. Use echo -n when you do not
want to store a trailing newline:
Use coder secret update to update a secret value, description, environment
variable target, or file target. At least one of --value, --description,
--env, or --file must be specified.
# Update a secret value.
echo -n "$NEW_API_KEY" | coder secret update api-key
# Change the environment variable target.
coder secret update api-key --env NEW_API_KEY
# Clear the file injection target while keeping the secret.
coder secret update api-key --file ""
List and delete secrets
List, show, and delete your secrets with the coder secret CLI:
# List all of your secrets.
coder secret list
# Show a single secret by name.
coder secret list api-key
# Delete a secret you no longer need.
coder secret delete api-key
The list and show commands return secret metadata only. They never return the
secret value.
