Secrets Management in CI/CD Pipelines#

Every CI/CD pipeline needs credentials: registry tokens, cloud provider keys, database passwords, API keys for third-party services. How you store, deliver, and scope those credentials determines whether a single compromised pipeline job can escalate into a full infrastructure breach. The difference between a mature and an immature pipeline is rarely in the build steps – it is in the secrets management.

The Problem with Static Secrets#

The default approach on every CI platform is storing secrets as encrypted variables: GitHub Actions secrets, GitLab CI variables, Jenkins credentials store. These work but create compounding risks: