Scopes

A profile defines how secrets behave in an environment. A scope selects which of those secrets one service, command, or task receives.

This lets several consumers share one profile without giving every consumer the complete secret set. An API and a background worker can use the same production profile, for example, while receiving different credentials.

Define scopes

Add a top-level [scopes] table to secretspec.toml. Each named scope contains an allowlist of secret names:

[profiles.default]DATABASE_URL = { description = "Database" }API_KEY = { description = "API key" }QUEUE_TOKEN = { description = "Queue token" }
[scopes.api]secrets = ["DATABASE_URL", "API_KEY"]
[scopes.worker]secrets = ["DATABASE_URL", "QUEUE_TOKEN"]

secretspec.toml

The active profile still controls requirements, defaults, providers, references, generation, composition, and storage addresses. Selecting api only narrows the resolved set to DATABASE_URL and API_KEY; it does not create another profile or another copy of either secret.

A scope must contain at least one unique, non-blank name. Every name must be declared by at least one profile, although the active profile does not need to declare every member.

Select a scope

check, run, and export accept --scope:

$ secretspec check --profile production --scope api
$ secretspec run --profile production --scope api -- ./api-server
$ secretspec export --profile production --scope worker --format dotenv

Terminal window

Set SECRETSPEC_SCOPE to select one without repeating the flag:

$ export SECRETSPEC_SCOPE=worker
$ secretspec run --profile production -- ./worker

Terminal window

The command-line flag takes precedence over the environment variable. With no scope selected, SecretSpec resolves the complete profile as before.

The untyped language SDK builders also accept an explicit scope and return its name in resolved and report results. See the SDK overview for the shared behavior and each SDK guide for its language-specific method.

What gets resolved

The visible set is the intersection of the selected scope and the merged active profile:

• a required secret outside the scope does not block scoped resolution;
• a secret outside the scope is not fetched unless a visible composed secret needs it;
• a valid scope whose intersection with the profile is empty resolves nothing and contacts no provider;
• a scope member absent from the active profile is simply absent from the resolved result, allowing one scope to be reused across profiles with different shapes.

Scopes never change a secret’s {project}/{profile}/{key} storage address. A scoped and unscoped read of the same secret addresses the same provider value.

Composed secrets

A visible composed secret may depend on values the scope excludes:

[profiles.default]DB_USER = { description = "Database user" }DB_PASSWORD = { description = "Database password" }DB_HOST = { description = "Database host" }DATABASE_URL = {  description = "Application database URL",  composed = "postgres://${DB_USER}:${DB_PASSWORD}@${DB_HOST}/app"}
[scopes.api]secrets = ["DATABASE_URL"]

secretspec.toml

SecretSpec resolves the three inputs to build DATABASE_URL, then exposes only DATABASE_URL. A secret that is neither visible nor a dependency of a visible composition is never fetched.

Narrow a process environment

run --scope removes every manifest-declared secret the scope does not admit from the child environment, even when the parent shell had already exported it. The removal covers names declared in every profile, preventing a value inherited from another profile from leaking into the launched process.

export --scope only emits the selected values. It cannot remove variables that already exist in the current shell because its output formats cannot express an unset. Use run --scope when narrowing an existing environment is the goal.

Scopes minimize secret delivery; they are not an authorization boundary. A child that has access to secretspec.toml and valid provider credentials may resolve another scope itself. Use provider permissions, service isolation, and operating-system controls when the process must be prevented from reading other values.

Validate scoped requirements

Cross-secret presence constraints are evaluated over the group members visible to the scope. A group with no visible members is not enforced for that consumer. When some members are visible, at_least_one or exactly_one is enforced over those members so a scoped consumer cannot rely on a credential it never receives.

Run an unscoped secretspec check when validating the complete profile rather than one consumer’s view.

Profiles and inheritance

Scopes are orthogonal to profiles and reusable across them. They do not inherit from the default profile; instead, the selected scope is applied after normal profile inheritance produces the effective profile.

In SecretSpec 0.19+, a profile with defaults.inherit = false does not include any default-profile secrets. A scope still intersects the effective profile, so it cannot bring an inherited secret into a standalone profile.

When a project uses extends, a child scope replaces a parent scope with the same name. The lists are not unioned, so extending a configuration cannot silently widen an allowlist. Scopes defined only by a parent remain available to the child.

Commands that ignore scopes

set and import ignore SECRETSPEC_SCOPE: a resolution allowlist must not silently restrict which secrets a write or migration command manages.

Rust’s generated typed loaders also ignore the ambient scope because their structs contain a field for every secret in the profile. Use the untyped resolver API when a Rust consumer needs scoped resolution.

See the [scopes] configuration reference for validation details, empty-selection behavior, audit semantics, and clearing an inherited scope selection.

Last updated Oct 08, 2026