GitOps secret management and how developers can survive it

Abstract

“I will remove it later after the local tests!”: the last famous words, before a production secret is written, committed and pushed to a repository. Secret management is hard in theory, harder when following GitOps principles, and in practice it is even worse: budget limits, technical limits, knowledge limits make implementing a secure and above all usable solution a challenge. In this talk we will see common GitOps secret management patterns, with their pros and cons, and how they can be improved to offer a better experience to developers and infrastructure teams.