Overview
Infisical is an open-source secrets management platform — a centralized place to store, sync, and rotate secrets (API keys, database URLs, tokens) across your team and infrastructure. Instead of .env files scattered across repos and Slack messages with passwords, Infisical stores secrets encrypted, syncs them to environments, injects them into CI/CD, and rotates them automatically.
When to Use
- Team sharing secrets via Slack/email (insecure)
.envfiles in repos or shared drives- Need secrets in CI/CD without hardcoding
- Rotating API keys and database passwords
- Multi-environment config (dev/staging/prod)
- Compliance requirement for secrets audit trail
Instructions
Setup
# Install CLI
npm install -g @infisical/cli
# Or self-host
docker compose up -d # From infisical/infisical repo
# Login
infisical login
Store and Retrieve Secrets
# Initialize in your project
infisical init
# Push secrets from .env file
infisical secrets set DATABASE_URL="postgresql://..." API_KEY="sk-..."
# List secrets
infisical secrets list --env=dev
# Run your app with injected secrets
infisical run -- npm start
# ^ Injects all secrets as environment variables
# Run with specific environment
infisical run --env=production -- node server.js
SDK Usage
// config.ts — Fetch secrets programmatically
import { InfisicalClient } from "@infisical/sdk";
const infisical = new InfisicalClient({
clientId: process.env.INFISICAL_CLIENT_ID,
clientSecret: process.env.INFISICAL_CLIENT_SECRET,
siteUrl: "https://infisical.mycompany.com", // Self-hosted URL
});
// Get all secrets for an environment
const secrets = await infisical.listSecrets({
environment: "production",
projectId: "proj_xxx",
path: "/",
});
// Get a specific secret
const dbUrl = await infisical.getSecret({
environment: "production",
projectId: "proj_xxx",
secretName: "DATABASE_URL",
});
console.log(dbUrl.secretValue);
CI/CD Integration
# .github/workflows/deploy.yml — Inject secrets in GitHub Actions
name: Deploy
on: push
jobs:
deploy:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- uses: Infisical/secrets-action@v1
with:
client-id: ${{ secrets.INFISICAL_CLIENT_ID }}
client-secret: ${{ secrets.INFISICAL_CLIENT_SECRET }}
project-id: proj_xxx
env-slug: production
# All secrets are now environment variables
- run: npm run deploy
Kubernetes Integration
# infisical-secret.yaml — Sync to Kubernetes secrets
apiVersion: secrets.infisical.com/v1alpha1
kind: InfisicalSecret
metadata:
name: my-app-secrets
spec:
hostAPI: https://infisical.mycompany.com
authentication:
universalAuth:
credentialsRef:
secretName: infisical-credentials
secretNamespace: default
managedSecretReference:
secretName: my-app-env # Created/synced K8s Secret
secretNamespace: default
creationPolicy: Owner
resyncInterval: 60 # Refresh every 60 seconds
Secret Rotation
# Auto-rotate database credentials
infisical secrets rotation create \
--provider=postgres \
--interval=30d \
--secret-name=DATABASE_URL \
--env=production
Examples
Example 1: Replace .env files with centralized secrets
User prompt: "Our team shares .env files via Slack. Set up proper secrets management."
The agent will set up Infisical, import existing .env files, configure per-environment secrets, and update the dev workflow to use infisical run.
Example 2: Inject secrets into CI/CD pipeline
User prompt: "Our GitHub Actions workflow hardcodes API keys in repository secrets. Centralize them."
The agent will set up Infisical with a machine identity for CI, configure the GitHub Action to inject secrets, and remove hardcoded values.
Guidelines
infisical run --replaces .env files — inject secrets as env vars- Per-environment secrets — dev, staging, production with different values
- Machine identities for CI — client ID + secret for non-human access
- Audit trail — every secret access is logged
- Self-hostable — run on your infrastructure for compliance
- Kubernetes operator — auto-sync secrets to K8s
- Secret rotation — auto-rotate database passwords, API keys
- RBAC — control who can access which environments
- Version history — see who changed what and when
- Point-in-time recovery — rollback to previous secret values