It Should Be Easy but... New Users' Experiences and Challenges with Secret Management Tools

Software developers face risks of leaking their software secrets, such as API keys or passwords, which can result in significant harm. Secret management tools (SMTs), such as HashiCorp Vault Secrets or Infisical, are highly recommended by industry, academia, and security guidelines to manage secrets securely. SMTs are designed to help developers secure their secrets in a central location, yet secrets leaks are still commonplace, and developers report difficulty in learning how to setup and use SMTs. While SMTs typically come with publicly available help resources (e.g., tool documentation and interfaces), it is unclear if these actually help developers learn to effectively use SMTs. Without usable help resources that onboards developers, quick adoption and effective use of SMTs may be unrealistic.