Dapr: Reading local secrets with .NET 5

Now that Dapr is about to hit version 1.0.0 let me show you how easy is to read secrets with a .NET 5 console application.

Create a console application

dotnet new console -n DaprSecretSample
cd DaprSecretSample

Add a reference to the Dapr.Client library

dotnet add package Dapr.Client --prerelease

Create a Secret Store component

Create a components folder and inside place a file named secretstore.yaml with the following contents:

apiVersion: dapr.io/v1alpha1
kind: Component
metadata:
  name: starwarssecrets
spec:
  type: secretstores.local.file
  metadata:
    - name: secretsFile
      value: ./secrets.json

This component will enable Dapr, and therefore your application, to read secrets from a secrets.json file.

Create a Secrets file

Create a secrets.json file with the following contents:

{
    "mandalorianSecret": "this is the way!"
}

Replace the contents of Program.cs

Replace the contents of Program.cs with the following code:

using System;
using Dapr.Client;

var client = new DaprClientBuilder().Build();
var secret = await client.GetSecretAsync("starwarssecrets", "mandalorianSecret");
Console.WriteLine($"Secret from local file: {secret["mandalorianSecret"]});

Test the program

Run the following command to test the application.

dapr run --app-id secretapp --components-path .\components\ -- dotnet run

Experiment

One of the amazing things about Dapr is that you code will be the same even if you change the underlying secret store.

In your local environment you can also try reading “secrets” from environment variables. In order to do so, replace the contents of the ./componentes/secrets.yaml file with:

apiVersion: dapr.io/v1alpha1
kind: Component
metadata:
  name: starwarssecrets
spec:
  type: secretstores.local.env

Be sure to set, in your system, an environment variable named mandalorianSecret, for instance:

export mandalorianSecret="May The Force be with you"

and run the application again:

dapr run --app-id secretapp --components-path .\components\ -- dotnet run

Note: I recommend using the secret stores shown in this post only for development or test scenarios. For a complete list of supported secret stores check the following repo: https://github.com/dapr/components-contrib/tree/master/secretstores.

Hope it helps!