There is a phrase that terrifies any Engineering Manager or DevOps leader: "Hey, can you send me the AWS Secret Key via Slack?".
In modern software development, Secrets Management is one of the most critical points. Despite advanced tools like Vault or AWS Secrets Manager, the problem persists in the "last mile": human-to-human communication.
When a new developer joins the team (Onboarding) or when you need to debug production quickly, the temptation to paste a credential in the chat is high. But doing this is equivalent to "hardcoding" the secret in the logs of a third-party platform.
In this post, we'll see how to avoid disasters in git secrets safety and what the hygienic flow is for sharing environment variables.
The Danger of "Ghost Secrets" in Slack and Git
The problem with sharing an API Key via chat or email is not just that someone sees it now. The problem is persistence.
- Git History is eternal: If you make the mistake of committing a .env file to your repository (even private), that secret lives in the Git history forever, unless you rewrite history (BFG Repo-Cleaner), which is painful and dangerous.
- Slack/Teams are not vaults: Chats have search engines. If an attacker enters your Slack a year later and searches for "password", "key", or "secret", they will find all the credentials your team shared "quickly" months ago.
Golden Rule: If a secret is written in plain text in a persistent medium (Chat, Email, Jira Ticket, Git), consider it compromised.
The Right Flow: "Generate, Share, Destroy"
To solve the problem of how to send env variables to team without risks, we need an ephemeral intermediate layer.
This is where Nurbak acts as a security buffer. Instead of exposing the secret, you expose a temporary link.
The Secure Workflow for Developers
Suppose you need to pass the STRIPE_SECRET_KEY to a colleague.
❌ The Lazy Way (Incorrect):
- Copy the key.
- Open Slack/Discord.
- Paste:
STRIPE_KEY=sk_live_51Mz... - Result: The key is recorded on Slack servers and in push notifications on your colleague's devices.
✅ The Secure Way with Nurbak (Correct):
- Copy the key.
- Go to Nurbak.
- Paste the key and configure: 1 Visit / 10 Minutes life.
- Generate the link.
- Paste the link in Slack: "Here is the Stripe key for local".
- Result: Your colleague opens the link, copies the key to their local .env, and the link explodes. If someone checks the chat history tomorrow, the link will be dead (404 Not Found).
Onboarding of New Developers
One of the most vulnerable moments is when a new dev joins the project. "Pass me the .env" usually results in a text file sent via email.
Best Practice: Copy the full content of your .env.example (or the real development values), paste them into Nurbak, and send a single link. This ensures that master development credentials don't stay floating in inboxes.
Security Comparison: Plain Text vs. Ephemeral Link
| Scenario | Copy/Paste in Chat | Ephemeral Link (Nurbak) |
|---|---|---|
| Exposure | High (Logs, Search, Notifications) | None (Encrypted in transit & temp rest) |
| Data Life | Indefinite | Seconds/Minutes |
| Audit Trail | Text remains visible | You know if link was consumed |
| Git Secrets Safety | Risk of accidental copy-paste | Risk mitigated |
Conclusion: Digital Hygiene in Code and Chat
You wouldn't git commit your passwords (or so we hope). You shouldn't "commit" your secrets to Slack history.
Using a tool to share API keys securely takes no more than 5 extra seconds, but saves you hours of credential rotation and explanations to security auditors.
Make the use of ephemeral links part of your engineering team's culture.
Need to pass an environment variable NOW?
Don't paste it in the chat. Generate a secure and self-destructing link in seconds.