Secrets

Amicu never accepts a secret value in configuration. A secret is a reference to a name, resolved when you apply.

secret("NAME")

resource "deployment" "chat" {
  model    = model.qwen3_8b.id
  hardware = hardware_profile.local_dev.id
  runtime  = "llama_cpp"
  api_key  = secret("CHAT_API_KEY")
  llama_cpp {
    context_length = 8192
    port           = 8000
    n_gpu_layers   = -1
  }
}

export CHAT_API_KEY=$(openssl rand -hex 32)
amicu apply

• The argument is a name. For the CLI it is the name of an environment variable.
• apply reads the variable from the environment of the process that runs amicu apply. If it is unset, apply fails with secret 'NAME' is not set in the environment.
• plan and validate never read it. The plan shows api_key: ******.
• The value is never written to state. State holds the reference (the name) only.

What is a secret field

Fields that hold credentials accept only secret(...): a deployment's api_key, and a credential resource's api_key, token, password, and env values. A quoted literal is a hard parse error, AMICU-POLICY-004. A secret("...") whose argument itself looks like a secret (for example an sk- key or a JWT) is rejected the same way, so a value cannot be smuggled in as a reference.

Warnings, not errors:

• AMICU-POLICY-005: a free-text field (description, display_name) or a comment contains something shaped like a key, JWT, or PEM header. Add # amicu:allow on that line to suppress it.
• AMICU-POLICY-006: a runtime env {} value looks like a secret. Move it to a secret(...) reference.

Per-deployment API key

Each deployment can declare api_key = secret("NAME"). It is the key clients must send as Authorization: Bearer <key>.

The resolved key must be non-empty and must not contain a comma, whitespace, or non-ASCII characters (AMICU-POLICY-008). Runtimes treat a comma as a list of several keys. openssl rand -hex 32 produces a valid key.

You cannot set the key another way: --api-key, --api-key-file, LLAMA_API_KEY, and VLLM_API_KEY in extra_args or env are rejected (AMICU-CAP-003).

How the key reaches the runtime

The key is delivered through the runtime's environment, never through the command line, logs, plans, or state. Amicu sets LLAMA_API_KEY for llama.cpp and VLLM_API_KEY for vLLM.

Other secrets work the same way: for example HF_TOKEN for gated Hugging Face repos is sent only into the running container (on Modal, as a Modal Secret).

What to do if a value leaks

Rotate it at the source. Because plan never reads secret values, it cannot tell that a value changed. To deliver a new key, recreate the deployment: remove it from the configuration and apply, then add it back and apply again.