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Version: v1.9.0

Consuming secrets

Every provider implements ISecretProvider which makes it easy to use a consistent flow, regardless of the provider.

Secrets can be easily retrieved as follows:

Secret secret = await secretProvider.GetSecretAsync("EventGrid-AuthKey");
string secretValue = secret.Value;string secretVersion = secret.Version;DateTimeOffset? expirationDate = secret.Expires;

Raw secrets#

In some scenarios you'd like to just get the secret value directly without any metadata. This is possible by calling the ...Raw... variants on the ISecretProvider implementations.

string secretValue = await secretProvider.GetRawSecretAsync("EventGrid-AuthKey");

Synchronous secrets#

In some scenarios you'd like to retrieve secrets synchronously. A common situation is when you want to register a dependent service into the dependency container that requires a secret, but since such a container only registers instances or synchronous functions, there is no easy way to retrieve a secret asynchronously.

Almost all built-in secret providers we provide support synchronous secret retrieval, only the HashiCorp Vault secret provider does not support this.

Retrieving synchronous secrets can be done via either using the ISyncSecretProvider alternative interface, or by calling the GetSecret extensions on an ISecretProvider implementation.

var services = new ServiceCollection();services.AddSingleton(serviceProvider =>{    // #1 injecting the `ISyncSecretProvider`:    var syncSecretProvider = serviceProvider.GetRequiredService<ISyncSecretProvider>();    Secret secret = synSecretProvider.GetSecret("EventGrid-AuthKey");    string secretValue = syncSecretProvider.GetRawSecret("EventGrid-AuthKey");
    // #2 calling `GetSecret` or `GetRawSecret` extension on `ISecretProvider`:    var secretProvider = serviceProvider.GetRequiredService<ISecretProvider>();    Secret secret = secretProvider.GetSecret("EventGrid-AuthKey");    string secretProvider = secretProvider.GetRawSecret("EventGrid-AuthKey");
    return new MyDependentService(secretValue);});

âš  Make sure that you only call the GetSecret and GetRawSecret extension on ISecretProvider implementations that also implement the ISyncSecretProvider interface. The Arcus secret store automatically makes sure that you can use this extension on any injected ISecretProvider but when no secret provider is registered that supports synchronous secret retrieval, a NotSupportedException will be thrown nonetheless.

Caching Secrets

Some secret providers recommend to cache secrets for a while to avoid hitting the service limitations.

We provide a CachedSecretProvider which allows the secrets to be cached in memory for a certain amount of time.

var cachedSecretProvider = new CachedSecretProvider(secretProvider);Secret secret = await cachedSecretProvider.GetSecretAsync("EventGrid-AuthKey");

If you prefer a more fluent approach you can also use our WithCaching extension.

var cachedSecretProvider = new KeyVaultSecretProvider(vaultAuthentication, vaultConfiguration)                                    .WithCaching();Secret secret = await cachedSecretProvider.GetSecretAsync("EventGrid-AuthKey");

âš  Make sure that your only call the cache-specific GetSecret("<secret-name>", ignoreCache: bool) and others on ISecretProvider implementations that also implement the ICachedSecretProvider interface. The Arcus secret store automatically makes sure that you can inject the ICachedSecretProvider but when no secret provider is registered that supported caching, a NotSupportedException will be thrown nonethless.

Configuring the cache#

By default, retrieved secrets are cached for 5 minutes, but you can configure this yourself.

var cacheConfiguration = new CacheConfiguration(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(10)); // Optional: Default is 5 minvar cachedSecretProvider = new CachedSecretProvider(secretProvider, cacheConfiguration);Secret secret = await cachedSecretProvider.GetSecretAsync("EventGrid-AuthKey");

Bypassing cached secrets#

In some scenarios you'd like to skip the cache and retrieve the secret by looking it up in the secret-store, instead of retrieving it from the cache.

This is important because in certain scenarios your secrets can be rolled and thus you will be revoked access.

Secret secret = await cachedSecretProvider.GetSecretAsync("EventGrid-AuthKey", ignoreCache: true);

Invalidates a secret from the cache#

In some scenarios you'd like to remove a cache entry so that the secret will be retrieved from the provider when a new lookup will be done.

After a hard refresh you can use the latest secret again and proceed your work. This is useful for scenario's where the secret is updated and you need to tell the cache somehow.

await cachedSecretProvider.InvalidateSecretAsync("EventGrid-AuthKey");