fabro/docs/internal/server-secrets-strategy.md

Server Secrets Strategy

This document defines how Fabro handles server-level secrets.

Fabro always runs as a server process plus one worker process per run. There is no CLI-local run execution, so the operative question for any credential is which process holds the value, and when does it resolve — see Which process resolves what.

Core Rules

• ServerSecrets is the canonical reader for bootstrap server secrets only.
• It reads bootstrap secrets from process env and <storage>/server.env.
• Resolution is snapshot-based: env and file are read once at construction, then treated as immutable for the life of the process.
• process env wins over server.env on conflicts.
• Optional integration secrets are vault-only in the server process. Do not add optional server integrations to ServerSecrets, and do not add bespoke env fallback paths to it.
• Not every credential is a ServerSecrets or vault lookup. A third mechanism exists: settings-declared credentials in InterpString fields, resolved at consumption time from {{ secrets.NAME }}. See Settings-declared credentials.
• fabro server start never generates secrets. Missing required secrets are a startup error.
• std::env::set_var and std::env::remove_var are banned workspace-wide. Tests are not exempt. Enforced by clippy via disallowed_methods in clippy.toml; intentional exceptions must be annotated with a scoped #[expect(clippy::disallowed_methods, reason = "...")] at the call site.

Bootstrap Server Secrets

These values may be read via state.server_secret(...) because the server can need them before optional integrations are available:

Secret	Used by
SESSION_SECRET	Cookie encryption and JWT signing derivation
FABRO_DEV_TOKEN	Dev-token user auth when server.auth.methods includes dev-token
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID / AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY / AWS_SESSION_TOKEN	Static S3 object-store credentials for server storage builders

These optional integration secrets are not server bootstrap secrets. They are provisioned into the vault:

• LLM provider API keys and OAuth credential records
• GITHUB_TOKEN
• GITHUB_APP_PRIVATE_KEY
• GITHUB_APP_CLIENT_SECRET
• GITHUB_APP_WEBHOOK_SECRET
• FABRO_SLACK_APP_TOKEN
• FABRO_SLACK_BOT_TOKEN
• DAYTONA_API_KEY
• BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY
• VENICE_API_KEY

FABRO_JWT_PRIVATE_KEY and FABRO_JWT_PUBLIC_KEY are removed. SESSION_SECRET is the single auth root.

Provisioning into the vault is not the same as the resolver being vault-only. CredentialResolver owns a documented process-env fallback that runs after the vault lookup (lib/foundation/fabro-auth/src/resolve.rs:198-204), and CredentialRef::Env(name) is a first-class credential source (resolve.rs:350). Which paths that fallback is live on is a per-process question:

• Server process — inert. lib/apps/fabro-server/src/server.rs:2453 builds SqlVaultCredentialSource::vault_only(...), so the env lookup always returns None.
• Worker process — wired but effectively inert for provider keys. build_llm_source (lib/components/fabro-workflow/src/pipeline/initialize.rs:275) builds the run's credential source with VaultCredentialSource::new, which carries the process-env fallback; the provider-listing path does the same via with_env_lookup(process_env_var) (operations/start.rs:529). But the worker's env was cleared and repopulated from WORKER_ENV_ALLOWLIST (lib/apps/fabro-server/src/spawn_env.rs:6), which does not include provider API keys. Exporting a provider key in the server's shell therefore has no effect on runs.
• fabro exec and direct fabro-llm SDK usage — live. These have no vault and read process env deliberately.

Which process resolves what

Both the server and per-run workers always exist. Name the resolving process and the timing rather than saying "server runtime", which is ambiguous.

Value	Resolved by	When
Bootstrap server secret	Server process, via ServerSecrets	Once at construction, then immutable
Optional integration secret	Server process or worker, via the vault	At use
{{ vars.NAME }}	Server process	When the run is created, from that run's variable snapshot
{{ secrets.NAME }}	The process that owns the value, against the server vault	At consumption time

docs/public/agents/mcp.mdx documents the same split for MCP server configuration and is a good worked example of the shape.

Settings-declared credentials

Some credentials are declared in settings rather than looked up by name. Those fields are InterpString (lib/foundation/fabro-types/src/settings/interp.rs), which supports narrow {{ namespace.NAME }} tokens with no template logic. Two namespaces resolve: secrets (vault, consumption time) and vars (non-sensitive run variables, substituted early at run creation). {{ env.NAME }} tokens still parse but never resolve; they fail loudly with a migration message. A token whose namespace is unavailable in the resolution context also fails loudly.

The reference implementation is LLM provider extra_headers, resolved against the vault at lib/foundation/fabro-auth/src/resolve.rs:376-378:

[llm.providers.example.extra_headers]
authorization = "Bearer {{ secrets.EXAMPLE_TOKEN }}"

Use this mechanism when the credential belongs to an operator-configured integration declared in settings.toml, rather than being a fixed secret name the code looks up. It is not a ServerSecrets field and is not covered by the bootstrap rules above.

When such a value is passed to a subprocess, treat it like any other authority-bearing value: see Subprocess Boundaries.

Startup

• Foreground and daemon startup use the same validation path.
• Required-at-startup secrets are:
  • SESSION_SECRET
  • FABRO_DEV_TOKEN when dev-token auth is enabled
  • GITHUB_APP_CLIENT_SECRET from the vault when GitHub auth is enabled
• Requiredness is independent from source. GitHub auth can require a vault secret at startup even though it is not a bootstrap ServerSecrets value.
• Other optional integration secrets remain lazy/feature-specific rather than universal boot blockers.

Provisioning

Bootstrap secrets come from one of two sources:

• Platform env for 12-factor deployments
• server.env written by install flows

Optional integration secrets are provisioned into the vault, usually with fabro secret set or fabro install.

There is no startup-time secret generation. A temporary startup migration moves recognized legacy optional secrets from process env or server.env into the vault, removes matching server.env entries after writing a backup, and logs conflicts by key name only. Runtime lookup remains vault-only after that migration step. See migrations-strategy.md for the migration pattern.

Subprocess Boundaries

• Worker and render-graph subprocesses start from env_clear() and re-add only explicit allowlisted variables.
• Authority-bearing values are re-injected intentionally. For worker subprocesses this is FABRO_WORKER_TOKEN, plus any explicitly required internal value such as a vault-derived GITHUB_APP_PRIVATE_KEY; it is not user auth state such as FABRO_DEV_TOKEN or auth.json.
• The worker reads FABRO_WORKER_TOKEN from its env at startup (in main() before Tokio initializes) and immediately calls std::env::remove_var to scrub it. The token then flows through function arguments to runner::execute. Every descendant process (hooks, sandbox commands, MCP stdio, etc.) therefore inherits a worker env that no longer contains the bearer, so an unscrubbed spawn site cannot leak it.
• The daemon child inherits the parent env unchanged except for output-format hygiene (FABRO_JSON removal).

Tests

• In-process tests must inject bootstrap server secrets with construction-time stubs (EnvSource, StubEnv) or by writing server.env.
• In-process tests for optional integrations must write the vault and must not rely on process env or server.env.
• Subprocess tests must set child env with Command::env.
• Tests must not mutate the process-wide environment.

Rotation

• Secret rotation requires restart.
• Live rotation is intentionally unsupported.

Adding A New Server Secret

First pick the mechanism. These are the only three:

Kind	Provisioned via	Read via
Bootstrap server secret	Platform env or install-written server.env	state.server_secret(...)
Optional integration secret	Vault (fabro secret set, fabro install)	state.vault_secret(...)
Settings-declared credential	{{ secrets.* }} in an InterpString settings field	Resolved at consumption time by the owning process

Then:

1. For the first two kinds, classify it in fabro-static as Bootstrap or OptionalVault. Settings-declared credentials are not classified there — they have no fixed secret name.
2. For bootstrap secrets, provision through platform env or install-written server.env, then read through state.server_secret(...).
3. For optional integration secrets, provision through the vault and read through state.vault_secret(...).
4. For settings-declared credentials, follow Settings-declared credentials and model the field on provider extra_headers.
5. Decide explicitly whether startup should fail when it is absent.
6. If a worker or render subprocess needs it, re-inject it explicitly rather than broadening inheritance casually. If the injected value is a credential, scrub it at worker startup the way FABRO_WORKER_TOKEN is scrubbed, so descendants do not inherit it.