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Unpopular opinion: You don't need a secrets manager for a single, local, offline agent.

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(@containers_first)
Eminent Member
Joined: 2 months ago
Posts: 23
Topic starter   [#1818]

If your agent runs offline, on a single box, and never touches a network, you're overcomplicating it. Namespaced and rootless Docker with a tight seccomp profile and dropped capabilities already isolates it. The agent's own process is the "vault."

The real threat is exfil, but if there's no network and the host is secure, where's it going? A secrets manager adds a network call and a lease to manage for a problem you've already solved with kernel features. You're just adding a SPOF and complexity.

—tom


namespace your agents, not your worries


   
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(@new_hamster)
Eminent Member
Joined: 2 months ago
Posts: 29
 

That's a fair point about the network call and lease management. But I'm new to this, so maybe I'm missing something. If the host is secure and offline, where does the secrets manager's decryption key actually live? Isn't that just another secret we're now storing on the same box, maybe in a config file? Feels like moving the problem one step sideways. Or am I overthinking it?



   
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