Git Secrets & Environment File Guide

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Git Secrets & Environment File Guide
Preventing Credential Exposure
This guide may be updated as GGU policies, procedures, platforms, and organizational needs change.

Secrets must never be committed to GGU repositories.

 

Never Commit

• Passwords
• API tokens
• Private keys
• Database credentials
• Session secrets
• OAuth/OIDC client secrets
• Production .env files containing secrets

 

Safe Patterns

• Commit an example file such as .env.example with placeholders.
• Store production secrets in the approved deployment or secret-management location.
• Use Gitea Actions secrets when appropriate for CI/CD.
• Rotate a secret immediately if it is committed, even if the commit is later removed.

Critical:
Deleting a secret from the latest commit does not make it secret again. Treat exposed credentials as compromised and rotate them.

 

Change Control

• Know what you are changing and why.
• Back up or ensure a rollback path for high-impact changes.
• Avoid combining unrelated changes.
• Record material production changes.
• Test before production when practical.

 

Validation

• Confirm the service starts successfully.
• Review logs for new errors.
• Test the exact behavior changed.
• Confirm permissions and integrations still work.
• Monitor briefly after deployment for delayed failures.

 

Escalation

If a change affects systems outside your responsibility, creates a security concern, or cannot be safely reversed, stop and escalate rather than continuing to experiment in production.

 

If a Secret Is Committed

1. Revoke/rotate the credential immediately.
2. Remove it from current code/config.
3. Determine whether history cleanup is necessary.
4. Review logs for misuse.
5. Document the incident if production or sensitive access was exposed.

 

Prerequisites

• Confirm you are authorized to make the change.
• Confirm the target system/server/repository.
• Read current project or service documentation.
• Identify the expected result.
• Identify a rollback or recovery path for high-impact work.

 

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Copying commands or values from a different server without checking context.
• Making several unrelated changes before testing.
• Ignoring warnings because the service still appears to start.
• Editing production directly when a safer test or review path exists.
• Deleting old files or backups before the replacement is verified.
• Treating permissions errors as a reason to grant broad administrator access.
• Failing to record what changed.

 

Operational Record

For material changes, record enough information for another administrator to understand the target, change, reason, result, and rollback point. This may be a ticket, issue, pull request, deployment note, incident record, or appropriate Leadership message.

 

If Something Goes Wrong

1. Stop making unrelated changes.
2. Preserve the current logs and error output.
3. Determine whether immediate rollback is safer than continued troubleshooting.
4. Restore the last known-good state where practical.
5. Escalate with the exact error, target service, recent changes, and reproduction steps.
6. After recovery, document the cause and any preventative follow-up.

 

Never solve a deployment problem by committing the secret.