Agent secrets & non-human credentials
Store and inject API keys for agents without leaking long-lived secrets into prompts, logs, or sandboxes.
At a glance — Oct 2026
Updated 2026-10-27 · forward this page: /jtbds/agent-secrets#briefScores as of 2026-09-14 (43 days old; Depot marks scores stale after 30 days). The pick is still Depot's current editorial pick; it has not been re-reviewed since. Prices below carry their own dates.
- Depot Pick
- Infisical · 8.36/10 for this job (curated estimate, high confidence)
privacy + dx + lockInRisk. Infisical wins on Agent Proxy + MIT self-host; Doppler wins pure DX.
- Runner-up
- Doppler · 8.47/10
Scores higher than the pick on: Price / performance, Latency / reliability, Developer & agent DX, Maturity / track record.
- When not to use the pick
- Want seat-priced SaaS DX + free agent identities — Doppler; already standardized on 1Password Business — onepassword-secrets; HashiCorp estate / dynamic creds — hashicorp-vault; pure AWS IAM world — aws-secrets-manager.
- Lock-in / migration
- The pick has lower stored lock-in risk than runner-up Doppler (3.5 vs 5). Pick exit signals: self-hostable (provider tag `self-host`); open source (provider tag `oss`).
- Sourced price (no comparable unit)
Pick: no sourced price in this job's unit (no_matching_sourced_price).
No cheapest SKU (no_candidate_has_sourced_price_in_job_unit:secret). No price was invented.
- Free option
- No free resource lists this job. A cheap paid SKU is not a free option.
- Failure modes to watch
- Eval contamination: Keep gold labels out of the agent prompt. Store the harness version beside the score. Do not compare a number across a benchmark revision without saying the revision changed.
- Over-refusal: Log refusals separately from successes. Review a sample against the written policy. Do not treat a refusal as a pass, and do not weaken a safety check to raise the pass rate.
- Prompt injection: Compare each tool call to the original user task. If the call only makes sense given text that arrived from a fetched page, file, or message, stop and ask. Record which source the instruction came from. This catalog does not store payloads or attack steps.
- Weak verification: Success requires an end-state check the agent does not grade for itself: tests, a database diff, or a separate judge that cannot see the gold label.
Cite: Agent Provider Depot, Depot Pick for agent-secrets: infisical, scores as of 2026-09-14. Agents: GET /api/decide?jtbd=agent-secrets
Infisical
privacy + dx + lockInRisk. Infisical wins on Agent Proxy + MIT self-host; Doppler wins pure DX.
Pricing (directional): As of 2026-09-14: Secrets billed per identity (human+machine). Free: 5 identities + MIT self-host core. Pro ~$20/identity/mo annual ($23 monthly); Advanced ~$40/$46 with dynamic secrets + Agent Proxy for dynamic secrets; Enterprise custom. …
Lock-in risk: higher = more lock-in (worse). Overall already inverts this dimension.
Depot default for agent secrets when you want OSS exit + Agent Proxy (placeholders instead of raw keys in the agent). Doppler if you want seat-priced DX and free non-human identities.
Quote for Agent secrets & non-human credentials
Depot Pick stays Infisical. Prices below are sourced SKU rows only (as of 2026-10-27). Input and output are not blended. GET /api/quote?jtbd=agent-secrets
Nothing was compared. mixed_secret_units: usd_per_identity_month and usd_per_user_month are both stored. They were not ranked together and were not blended. Cheapest stays null. pickIsPriceWinner is null.
- Privileged Access Pro usd_per_user_month $20 source as of 2026-10-03
- Secrets Management Advanced annual usd_per_identity_month $40 source as of 2026-10-03
- Secrets Management Advanced monthly usd_per_identity_month $46 source as of 2026-10-03
- Secrets Management Pro annual usd_per_identity_month $20 source as of 2026-10-03
- Secrets Management Pro monthly usd_per_identity_month $23 source as of 2026-10-03
3 of 5 candidates have no sourced price row. 5 are excluded from the Secret price comparison (secret). mixed_secret_units: usd_per_identity_month and usd_per_user_month are both stored. They were not ranked together and were not blended. Cheapest stays null.
Runners-up
Doppler
Best secrets DX for most startups. Prefer Infisical when you need self-host or Agent Proxy that never hands…
1Password Secrets Automation
Use when the company already lives in 1Password Business. Don't buy 1Password just for agents — pick…
HashiCorp Vault (HCP)
Runner-up for agent secrets when HashiCorp is already the standard. Infisical remains the depot default for…
AWS Secrets Manager
Default only if the agent already runs inside AWS with IAM roles. Otherwise Doppler/Infisical.
When NOT to use the top pick
Want seat-priced SaaS DX + free agent identities — Doppler; already standardized on 1Password Business — onepassword-secrets; HashiCorp estate / dynamic creds — hashicorp-vault; pure AWS IAM world — aws-secrets-manager.
Full ranking (score table)
Ranked with this JTBD's weights. Scores are curated estimates unless marked otherwise. Agents: prefer /api/decide then this table for tie-breaks.
| # | Provider | Overall | Fit | $/perf | Latency | DX | As of |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Doppler | 8.5 | 8.6 | 8.4 | 8.8 | 9.4 | 2026-09-14 |
| 2 | InfisicalDepot Pick | 8.4 | 8.8 | 8.2 | 8.2 | 8.8 | 2026-09-14 |
| 3 | HashiCorp Vault (HCP) | 8.1 | 9.2 | 6.2 | 9.4 | 7.0 | 2026-09-14 |
| 4 | 1Password Secrets Automation | 8.0 | 7.8 | 7.5 | 9.0 | 7.8 | 2026-09-14 |
| 5 | AWS Secrets Manager | 7.7 | 8.0 | 7.0 | 9.4 | 6.5 | 2026-09-14 |
Score methodology for this job
privacy + dx + lockInRisk. Infisical wins on Agent Proxy + MIT self-host; Doppler wins pure DX.
capabilityFit: 25%pricePerformance: 18%latencyReliability: 15%developerDx: 15%privacyPosture: 10%lockInRisk: 7%maturity: 10%