Secrets management best practices for ephemeral environments

Secrets management for ephemeral environments requires a shift from traditional strategies used in persistent systems, focusing on the use of short-lived credentials that expire with the workload to mitigate security risks. In dynamic infrastructures like Kubernetes, serverless functions, and CI/CD pipelines, secrets should be injected at runtime rather than build time, and automated processes should be in place for token rotation and revocation through cloud providers or secrets managers like Doppler. Centralizing the orchestration of secrets management helps prevent leaks, reduces operational overhead, and enhances compliance by providing a unified workflow across diverse platforms. By using temporary credentials and dynamic secret injection, organizations can improve their security posture, reduce the risk of credential misuse, and maintain operational consistency, particularly as ephemeral workloads expand with the growth of AI-driven systems.