$ initializing alanops _

Secrets Management in the LLM Era: What Changes?

You may be wondering if anything changes with secrets management now that we’re all copy-pasting code into ChatGPT, Claude, and other LLMs daily. The short answer? Yes, everything changes.

The New Reality

Let’s be honest about what’s happening in 2025:

– Developers are sharing entire codebases with LLMs for debugging

  • We’re pasting configuration files to get help with syntax
  • We’re asking LLMs to review our infrastructure code
  • Junior developers are learning by showing LLMs their workThis creates a fundamental shift in how we need to think about secrets.

    The Problem: LLMs Have Perfect Memory

    Unlike your coworker who might forget that AWS key you accidentally showed them, LLMs:

    – Remember everything (at least within a conversation)

  • Can be prompted to recall information later
  • Might use your secrets as training data (depending on the service)
  • Could expose secrets in responses to other usersThe nightmare scenario: You paste your .env file to debug something, and your API keys end up in an LLM’s response to someone asking “show me an example of environment variables.”

    What Doesn’t Work Anymore

    1. “Just Be Careful”

When you’re debugging at 3 AM and need to fix production, you’re not going to carefully redact every secret. Human vigilance doesn’t scale.

2. Complex Secret Management Systems

If your secret management requires 5 steps to access a value, developers will just hardcode secrets “temporarily” to get their work done with LLMs.

3. Security Through Obscurity

Hiding secrets in various config files doesn’t work when you’re sharing entire project directories.

The Solution: Embrace Simplicity

After trying various approaches, here’s what actually works:

1. Use .env Files (Yes, Really)

.env


DATABASE_URL=postgresql://user:pass@localhost/myapp
API_KEY=sk-1234567890abcdef
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE

Why this works:

  • It’s simple – developers will actually use it
  • It’s gitignored by default in most templates
  • It’s obvious – you know never to share .env
  • Tools understand it

2. Automatic Loading with direnv

Install direnv


sudo apt-get install direnv
echo 'eval "$(direnv hook bash)"' >> ~/.bashrc

Create .envrc

echo “dotenv” > .envrc direnv allow

Now your secrets load automatically, no manual sourcing required.

3. Sanitization Before Sharing

Here’s a simple Python script that should be in every project:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import sys
import re

PATTERNS = [ (r'(api[-_]?key|apikey)\s[:=]\s[“\’]?([A-Za-z0-9_\-]+)[“\’]?’, r’\1=[REDACTED]’), (r'(password|passwd|pwd)\s[:=]\s[“\’]?([^”\’\s]+)[“\’]?’, r’\1=[REDACTED]’), (r'(secret|token)\s[:=]\s[“\’]?([A-Za-z0-9_\-]+)[“\’]?’, r’\1=[REDACTED]’), (r’^([A-Z_]+)=(.+)

Usage:

Before copying to LLM


./sanitize.py file config.py | pbcopy

Or pipe anything through it

cat deployment.yaml | ./sanitize.py | pbcopy

The Workflow That Actually Gets Adopted

1. Development: Secrets in .env, loaded automatically by direnv
2. Sharing with LLMs: Run sanitizer before copying
3. Production: Still use proper secret management (AWS Secrets Manager, Vault, etc.)

What About Advanced Secret Management?

Yes, you should still use:

  • AWS Secrets Manager / Azure Key Vault for production
  • HashiCorp Vault for enterprise environments
  • Kubernetes Secrets for container orchestration
  • GitHub Secrets for CI/CDBut for local development where LLM interaction happens? Keep it simple with .env.

    New Best Practices for the LLM Era

    1. Assume Everything Gets Shared

– Design systems assuming code will be shown to LLMs
– Make secrets obvious and separate

2. Make Sanitization Automatic
“bash
# Add to your .bashrc
alias llm-copy='./sanitize.py file'
`

3. Use Descriptive Secret Names
`bash
# Bad
KEY=abc123

# Good
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_test_abc123
`

4. Regular Secret Rotation
– If a secret might have been exposed to an LLM, rotate it
– Automate rotation where possible

5. Project-Level .gitignore
`
.env
.env.*
!.env.example
`

The Reality Check

Perfect security doesn’t exist. The goal is to make the secure path easier than the insecure path. In the LLM era, that means:

– Simple tools that developers will actually use

  • Automatic sanitization that doesn’t slow down work
  • Clear separation between secrets and code
  • Accepting that mistakes will happen and planning for them

    Conclusion

    The rise of LLMs hasn’t changed the fundamentals of secrets management, but it has dramatically increased the surface area for exposure. The solution isn’t more complex security tools – it’s making the simple tools work better for how developers actually work.

    The TL;DR: Use .env files, automatically load them with direnv`, sanitize before sharing with LLMs, and keep production secrets in proper vaults. Simple beats complex when humans are in the loop.

    —

    What’s your approach to secrets management in the age of LLMs? Have you had any close calls? Let me know in the comments or reach out on LinkedIn.

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