Secret Registry - OpenHands Docs

This example is available on GitHub: examples/01_standalone_sdk/12_custom_secrets.py

The Secret Registry provides a secure way to handle sensitive data in your agent’s workspace. It automatically detects secret references in bash commands, injects them as environment variables when needed, and masks secret values in command outputs to prevent accidental exposure.

examples/01_standalone_sdk/12_custom_secrets.py

import os

from pydantic import SecretStr

from openhands.sdk import (
    LLM,
    Agent,
    Conversation,
)
from openhands.sdk.conversation.secret_source import SecretSource
from openhands.sdk.tool import Tool
from openhands.tools.file_editor import FileEditorTool
from openhands.tools.terminal import TerminalTool


# Configure LLM
api_key = os.getenv("LLM_API_KEY")
assert api_key is not None, "LLM_API_KEY environment variable is not set."
model = os.getenv("LLM_MODEL", "openhands/claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929")
base_url = os.getenv("LLM_BASE_URL")
llm = LLM(
    usage_id="agent",
    model=model,
    base_url=base_url,
    api_key=SecretStr(api_key),
)

# Tools
tools = [
    Tool(name=TerminalTool.name),
    Tool(name=FileEditorTool.name),
]

# Agent
agent = Agent(llm=llm, tools=tools)
conversation = Conversation(agent)


class MySecretSource(SecretSource):
    def get_value(self) -> str:
        return "callable-based-secret"


conversation.update_secrets(
    {"SECRET_TOKEN": "my-secret-token-value", "SECRET_FUNCTION_TOKEN": MySecretSource()}
)

conversation.send_message("just echo $SECRET_TOKEN")

conversation.run()

conversation.send_message("just echo $SECRET_FUNCTION_TOKEN")

conversation.run()

# Report cost
cost = llm.metrics.accumulated_cost
print(f"EXAMPLE_COST: {cost}")

Running the Example

export LLM_API_KEY="your-api-key"
export MY_SECRET="secret-value"
cd agent-sdk
uv run python examples/01_standalone_sdk/12_custom_secrets.py

Injecting Secrets

Use the update_secrets() method to add secrets to your conversation, as shown in the example above. Secrets can be provided as static strings or as callable functions that dynamically retrieve values, enabling integration with external secret stores and credential management systems:

from openhands.sdk.conversation.secret_source import SecretSource

# Static secret
conversation.update_secrets({"SECRET_TOKEN": "my-secret-token-value"})

# Dynamic secret using SecretSource
class MySecretSource(SecretSource):
    def get_value(self) -> str:
        return "callable-based-secret"

conversation.update_secrets({"SECRET_FUNCTION_TOKEN": MySecretSource()})

Next Steps

MCP Integration - Connect to MCP
Security Analyzer - Add security validation