Secrets

Stacks hold references, never values. References are resolved when you apply, and they’re never written to state or to the lock.

Reference	Source
${env:NAME}	An environment variable
${file:~/.secrets/x}	The contents of a file. Relative paths start from the stack’s directory

${op://…} and ${keychain:…} are planned, and using them now is an error.

What ends up in each agent’s file

If an agent can expand a reference itself, Pegboard writes it in that agent’s own syntax and the secret stays out of the file. If not, the value is written in plain text, and the plan warns you first.

Agent	${env:X} becomes	${file:…} becomes
Claude Code	${X}	Plain text
Codex	Depends on the field, see below	Plain text
opencode	{env:X}	{file:/absolute/path}
Hermes	Plain text	Plain text
Pi	${X}	Plain text
OMP	${X}	Plain text
OpenClaw	${X}	Plain text
Cursor	${env:X}	Plain text
Gemini CLI	${X}	Plain text

Codex keeps the value out of its file in three cases, and uses plain text for everything else:

• An env var whose key is X, as env_vars = ["X"]
• Authorization: Bearer ${env:X}, as bearer_token_env_var
• A header set to ${env:X}, as env_http_headers

Rotating a secret

State stores a hash of each entry with plain-text values masked, so it can detect manual edits without depending on the secret. When you rotate a plain-text secret, plan shows it as ~ update.