Credentials

Phase 2.1 · design: design-phase-2.1-credentials.md

A credential is a pure named secret — { name, secret, scope }. It authenticates Harness Nexus out to an upstream MCP server or LLM gateway. (It is not a personal access token; PATs authenticate into Harness Nexus.)

Key properties

• Encrypted at rest — AES-256-GCM (CREDENTIAL_ENCRYPTION_KEY, falling back to JWT_SECRET). The API never returns the plaintext; responses carry a masked secretPreview only. Decryption happens solely at resolve time.
• Referenced by placeholder, not bindings — write ${cred:NAME} anywhere in a transport string field (url, command, args, env values, header values) and the resolver substitutes it at the right moment:
  • server-dialed MCP rows: at connect time, server-side;
  • client-dialed rows: at config-fetch time, inside the shim's memory only.
• Distributable flag — personal credentials are always distributable; a global credential is distributable only if an admin opts in. Distributable credentials may be shipped to a user's machine for client-dialed connections and provider config push; locked globals stay server-only.

Scope rules

Same as everything else: global = readable by all authenticated users, admin-only to mutate; personal = owner-only. See Authentication.