Home Assistant

Storing secrets

The configuration.yaml file is a plain-text file, thus it is readable by anyone who has access to the file. The file contains passwords and API tokens which need to be redacted if you want to share your configuration. By using !secret you can remove any private information from your configuration files. This separation can also help you to keep easier track of your passwords and API keys, as they are all stored at one place and no longer spread across the configuration.yaml file or even multiple YAML files if you split up your configuration.

Using secrets.yaml

The workflow for moving private information to secrets.yaml is very similar to the splitting of the configuration. Create a secrets.yaml file in your Home Assistant configuration directory.

The entries for password and API keys in the configuration.yaml file usually looks like the example below.

homeassistant:
  auth_providers:
   - type: legacy_api_password
     api_password: YOUR_PASSWORD

Those entries need to be replaced with !secret and an identifier.

homeassistant:
  auth_providers:
   - type: legacy_api_password
     api_password: !secret http_password

The secrets.yaml file contains the corresponding password assigned to the identifier.

http_password: "YOUR_PASSWORD"

Debugging secrets

When you start splitting your configuration into multiple files, you might end up with configuration in sub folders. Secrets will be resolved in this order:

  • A secrets.yaml located in the same folder as the YAML file referencing the secret,
  • next, parent folders will be searched for a secrets.yaml file with the secret, stopping at the folder with the main configuration.yaml.

To see where secrets are being loaded from, you can either add an option to your secrets.yaml file or use the check_config script. The latter is only available for Home Assistant Core installations given it’s available through hass.

Option 1: Print where secrets are retrieved from to the Home Assistant log by adding the following to secrets.yaml:

logger: debug

This will not print the actual secret’s value to the log.

Option 2: For Home Assistant Core installations, you can also view where secrets are retrieved from and the contents of all secrets.yaml files using the check_config script from the command line:

hass --script check_config --secrets

This will print all your secrets.