## Thinking Path
> - Paperclip is the open source app people use to manage AI agents for
work.
> - The agent configuration UI controls each agent and its allowed
secrets.
> - The environment variable editor already has a secret selector with
search and folder navigation.
> - The secret access editor used a basic list and made large secret
stores hard to use.
> - The secret access controls also occupied the main Configuration tab.
> - This pull request reuses the rich selector and moves secret access
to a dedicated Secrets tab.
> - The benefit is one consistent secret selection workflow with clearer
agent configuration navigation.
## Linked Issues or Issue Description
**What existing behavior does this improve?**
The agent detail configuration view and its secret access editor.
**Subsystem affected**
`ui/` — React and Vite board UI.
**Current behavior**
The secret access editor uses a basic select control. It does not
provide the search and folder navigation available in the environment
variable editor. The editor also appears inside the Configuration tab.
**Proposed behavior**
The secret access editor uses the shared secret picker. Users can search
secrets and browse slash-delimited folders. Agent details provide a
dedicated Secrets tab for this editor.
**Reason and benefit**
Large secret stores are slow to scan in a flat list. Reusing one
selector reduces UI differences and makes scoped secret access easier to
manage.
**Breaking changes**
None. The API and saved secret access data do not change.
## What Changed
- Reused the environment variable secret picker in the agent secret
access editor.
- Preserved secret version selection and the create-secret action,
including nested-popover focus handling.
- Added a route-backed Secrets tab to agent details and removed secret
access controls from Configuration.
- Guarded unsaved configuration across tab, link, browser-history, and
action-triggered navigation.
- Rechecked dirty state when navigation-producing agent actions finish,
covering edits made while a request is pending.
- Added component, page, and Storybook coverage for the workflow.
## Verification
- `pnpm --filter @paperclipai/ui exec vitest run
src/components/AgentActionButtons.test.tsx
src/components/AgentConfigForm.render.test.tsx
src/components/AgentSecretAccessEditor.test.tsx
src/components/environment-variables-editor/EnvironmentVariablesEditor.test.tsx
src/pages/AgentDetail.progress.test.ts` — 82 tests passed.
- `pnpm --filter @paperclipai/ui typecheck`
- `pnpm check:token-gates`
- All GitHub PR checks passed on `5209c5b787`, including build, canary,
general and serialized tests, and all three e2e shards.
- Greptile completed at 5/5 with zero unresolved review threads.
## Risks
- Low risk. The API and persisted binding format are unchanged; this
changes agent configuration navigation and secret selection UI.
- Dirty-state guards now cover direct navigation, Back/Forward history,
and navigation-producing agent actions, including pending-request races.
- Tests cover tab separation, secret access updates, search, folder
navigation, focus restoration, and navigation rejection.
- No documentation change is required because commands, contracts, and
setup steps do not change.
> For core feature work, check [`ROADMAP.md`](ROADMAP.md) first and
discuss it in `#dev` before opening the PR. Feature PRs that overlap
with planned core work may need to be redirected — check the roadmap
first. See `CONTRIBUTING.md`.
## Model Used
OpenAI Codex with GPT-5. This runtime did not expose a more specific
model ID or context window. The model used agentic reasoning, repository
tools, and code execution.
## Checklist
- [x] I have included a thinking path that traces from project context
to this change
- [x] I have specified the model used (with version and capability
details)
- [x] I have checked ROADMAP.md and confirmed this PR does not duplicate
planned core work
- [x] I have searched GitHub for duplicate or related PRs and linked
them above
- [x] I have either (a) linked existing issues with `Fixes: #` / `Closes
#` / `Refs #` OR (b) described the issue in-PR following the relevant
issue template
- [x] I have not referenced internal/instance-local Paperclip issues or
links (only public GitHub `#NNN` / `github.com/paperclipai/paperclip`
URLs)
- [x] My branch name describes the change (e.g. `docs/...`, `fix/...`)
and contains no internal Paperclip ticket id or instance-derived details
- [x] I have run tests locally and they pass
- [x] I have added or updated tests where applicable
- [x] I have updated relevant documentation to reflect my changes
- [x] I have considered and documented any risks above
- [x] All Paperclip CI gates are green
- [x] Greptile is 5/5 with no open P2s, recommendations, or follow-ups
- [x] I will address all Greptile and reviewer comments before
requesting merge
---------
Co-authored-by: Paperclip <noreply@paperclip.ing>
## Thinking Path
> - Paperclip is the control plane people use to manage AI-agent
companies.
> - Agents can encounter credentials during work.
> - Directly creating live secrets or bindings would bypass human
governance.
> - Proposal records must remain inert and separate from live secret
resolution until an authorized human approves them.
> - Approval must reuse the existing secret-create and protected
agent-config write paths.
> - This pull request adds the propose, review, approve, and reject
lifecycle.
> - The benefit is that agents can safely hand credentials into
Paperclip without exposing plaintext or gaining authority to activate
them.
## Linked Issues or Issue Description
Follow-on to #9921, which established run-bound agent secret access.
**Problem / motivation:**
Agents can receive credentials during work. There is no governed way for
them to propose a credential or binding without exposing plaintext in
work artifacts or immediately creating live access.
**Proposed solution:**
Store agent-authored proposals outside live secret tables. Encrypt each
proposed value and register exact-value redaction when Paperclip
receives it. Require an authorized human to approve or reject each
proposal. Approval executes through the normal write paths as the human
approver. Binding proposals can target only the proposer or its downward
reporting chain under the restrictive V1 policy.
**Alternatives considered:**
We rejected live secrets with a `proposed` status. That design would put
untrusted rows in resolver, list, and sync paths. It would also allow
uniqueness squatting. We rejected direct agent binding writes because a
binding is an agent-config write and must keep the existing human
permission gate.
**Roadmap alignment:**
This change extends the run-bound agent secret-access foundation in
#9921 with a governed proposal workflow.
## Security Verdict
Q0 SecEng verdict: **PASS-with-required-changes**. The review accepted
the separate proposal-table design and required the implementation to:
- fail closed unless both encryption and exact-value run redaction
registration succeed;
- scrub ciphertext idempotently on reject, withdraw, and expiry, with
audit-visible state;
- treat agent justification as hostile input and foreground action,
target, provenance, and approver permissions;
- snapshot and re-check the target agent plus reports-to chain at
approval to prevent org-chart laundering;
- make cascade approval atomic and fail closed if either secret creation
or binding authorization fails;
- deny low-trust, `skill_test`, `task_bridge`, and non-run-bound sources
consistently; and
- execute approval through the normal human secret/config write paths,
including protected-change gates.
Those requirements are implemented and covered by focused service,
route, and UI tests. Residual V1 risk remains the accepted 14-day
encrypted retention window. Proposal-time redaction also cannot clean a
value that leaked before the propose call.
## What Changed
- Added `company_secret_proposals`, migration `0207`, shared proposal
contracts, and a state-machine service for create, approve, reject,
withdraw, cascade, expiry, and ciphertext scrubbing.
- Added run-bound agent proposal routes and board review routes. The
routes derive provenance from authentication and enforce source
restrictions, company isolation, chain-of-command checks,
approval-as-approver, wake-on-resolution, and dual audit trails.
- Added durable per-run exact-value redaction registration so proposal
values remain redacted on later read surfaces.
- Added the Secrets **Proposals** tab and agent configuration **Proposed
access** rows. The UI shows fingerprint and length only. It also frames
agent justification as untrusted input, runs permission preflight,
supports approve and reject actions, and confirms cascades.
- Updated OpenAPI, agent skill guidance, API reference documentation,
and focused server and UI regression coverage.
- Rebased the branch onto current `master` and renumbered the proposal
migration after `0206`.
## QA Acceptance Results
Q5 QA verdict: **PASS — 9/9 acceptance criteria met**, with one Minor
non-blocking follow-up.
- **AC1:** proposed values never echo, never appear in live
lists/resolvers, and expose only fingerprint + length to board
reviewers.
- **AC2:** restrictive `self_and_reports` matrix passes: self/downward
allowed; upward/lateral denied.
- **AC3:** secret approval uses the normal create path, honors rename
overrides, records proposer/approver provenance, and scrubs ciphertext.
- **AC4:** approved bindings materialize and resolve through the target
agent's runtime list/fetch routes.
- **AC5:** pending-secret bindings require cascade; cascade succeeds
atomically and permission failures leave nothing applied.
- **AC6:** reject, withdraw, dependent rejection, and expiry paths scrub
ciphertext and preserve reasons/audit state.
- **AC7:** token/source and approver denial matrix passes through live
checks plus focused route tests.
- **AC8:** proposal lifecycle events and reused
`secret.created`/config-write events form the required dual audit trail;
origin-issue notification and wake are queued.
- **AC9:** both review surfaces render and execute correctly; UI
approval materializes the binding.
QA also confirmed zero plaintext occurrences for all exercised proposal
values in server logs. The single finding is that the company-level
`bindingTargetPolicy` toggle is not wired yet. V1 is hardcoded to the
restrictive `self_and_reports` policy. The matrix is correct and the
follow-up is tracked separately, so QA classified it as non-blocking.
## Verification
- Focused server proposal and redaction suite: 83 tests pass.
- Focused proposal review UI suite: 54 tests pass.
- Embedded-Postgres migration reapply test: 1 test passes with the
documented 30-second timeout.
- `pnpm --filter @paperclipai/db typecheck` passes, including migration
numbering and safety checks.
- `pnpm --filter @paperclipai/shared typecheck` passes.
- `pnpm --filter @paperclipai/ui typecheck` passes.
- `pnpm check:token-gates` passes with all gates clean.
- Q5 exercised the complete propose, review, approve, bind, and
runtime-resolve flow over real HTTP, JWT, and database paths. It
verified 9/9 acceptance criteria.
## Risks
- Proposal ciphertext is retained encrypted for up to 14 days while
pending. Terminal-state and expiry scrub paths reduce but do not remove
server-compromise risk during that window.
- The V1 target policy is restrictive but not yet company-configurable.
A separate follow-up owns that change.
- A new migration can require another renumber if another migration
lands before maintainers merge this pull request.
> For core feature work, check [`ROADMAP.md`](ROADMAP.md) first and
discuss it in `#dev` before opening the PR. Feature PRs that overlap
with planned core work may need to be redirected. See `CONTRIBUTING.md`.
## Model Used
- OpenAI Codex coding agent. The exact runtime model ID and
context-window size are not exposed. The agent used reasoning,
repository editing, terminal execution, Paperclip API, and GitHub CLI
capabilities. Q3 UI work also records Claude Opus 4.8 assistance in its
commit trailers.
## Checklist
- [x] I have included a thinking path that traces from project context
to this change
- [x] I have specified the model used (with version and capability
details)
- [x] I have checked ROADMAP.md and confirmed this PR does not duplicate
planned core work
- [x] I have searched GitHub for duplicate or related PRs and linked
them above
- [x] I have either (a) linked existing issues with `Fixes: #` / `Closes
#` / `Refs #` OR (b) described the issue in-PR following the relevant
issue template
- [x] I have not referenced internal or instance-local Paperclip issues
or links
- [x] My branch name describes the change and contains no internal
Paperclip ticket id or instance-derived details
- [x] I have run tests locally and they pass
- [x] I have added or updated tests where applicable
- [x] I have updated relevant documentation to reflect my changes
- [x] I have considered and documented any risks above
- [x] All Paperclip CI gates are green
- [x] Greptile is 5/5 with no open P2s, recommendations, or follow-ups
- [x] I will address all Greptile and reviewer comments before
requesting merge
---------
Co-authored-by: Paperclip <noreply@paperclip.ing>
Co-authored-by: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
## Thinking Path
> - Paperclip is the open source control plane people use to manage
AI-agent companies.
> - Agents already receive selected company secrets through `env.*`
bindings at run launch, but environment injection is ambient,
long-lived, and not suitable for every secret consumer.
> - The existing binding and secret-access-event models already provide
company-scoped authorization and per-resolution audit seams.
> - Agents need an explicit way to discover only the secrets granted to
them and fetch a value on demand without exposing the wider company
catalog.
> - That capability must remain run-bound, preserve low-trust token
carve-outs, and make every value read visible in both security and
operator audit trails.
> - This pull request adds an `access.*` delivery namespace, two
run-bound agent routes, dual audit logging, documentation, and an
operator grants editor.
> - The benefit is least-privilege, revocable, auditable secret access
while preserving existing env injection behavior.
## Linked Issues or Issue Description
No pre-existing public issue. Related work:
- Refs #9797 — existing in-sheet agent access UI that this PR extends to
distinguish env and API delivery.
- Refs #9918 — complementary searchable-agent picker improvement for the
same secrets sheet.
- Refs #9530 — related company-wide metadata catalog proposal; this PR
intentionally exposes only the authenticated run's granted aliases and
values.
**Problem / motivation:** Agents can currently consume secrets only
through process environment injection. This keeps values resident for
the run, does not support on-demand consumers, and cannot provide a
discrete operator-visible activity event for each agent-initiated read.
**Proposed solution:** Treat `company_secret_bindings` as the source of
truth for agent secret grants. Keep `env.KEY` as env delivery and add
`access.ALIAS` for API-only delivery; an env binding also implies read
access because the value is already present in the agent process. Add
run-bound list/fetch endpoints that derive scope from the authenticated
heartbeat run and never accept caller-selected overlays.
**Alternatives considered:** A company-wide agent-readable catalog was
rejected for this value path because it increases reconnaissance and
does not prove a per-secret grant. Reusing the ephemeral
environment-probe resolver was rejected because it lacks binding
enforcement. Approval-gated reads and user-scoped secrets remain
deferred beyond v1.
**Roadmap alignment:** This extends the completed **Secrets Manager with
per-agent access** roadmap capability from launch-time env injection to
explicit run-bound API delivery without duplicating a separate planned
initiative.
## What Changed
- Added `access.*` agent binding validation and a dedicated run-bound
resolver that combines `secrets:read` authorization with binding-context
enforcement.
- Added `GET /api/agents/me/secrets` for minimal granted metadata and
`POST /api/agents/me/secrets/:key/value` for on-demand value fetches
with `Cache-Control: no-store`.
- Preserved the existing denials for low-trust review agents,
task-bridge credentials, and skill-test tokens; standard long-lived
agent API keys cannot call the run-bound routes.
- Added dual audit behavior: value attempts write `secret_access_events`
and `activity_log` (`secret.value.read`), while metadata listing writes
the lighter `secret.access.listed` activity event.
- Kept env compatibility: `env.*` remains injected at launch and also
implies API read for the same bound agent; `access.*` never becomes an
environment variable.
- Added the agent-settings **Secret access** editor plus
delivery-mode/alias surfacing on the Secrets page, with focused UI tests
and tokenized layout styles.
- Updated OpenAPI, shared types, agent-facing skill documentation, and
API reference documentation.
### UI Screenshots
P3 produced and reviewed three screenshots using mock data; images are
intentionally not committed to the repository:
- `secret-access-editor.png` — agent settings grant editor.
- `secret-access-light.png` — Secrets-page delivery surfacing in light
mode.
- `secret-access-dark.png` — Secrets-page delivery surfacing in dark
mode.
The source attachments are retained with the implementation task and
linked in the internal handoff; the public page publisher was
unavailable in the PR-prep runtime.
## Verification
- `pnpm exec vitest run
server/src/__tests__/agent-secrets-routes.test.ts
server/src/__tests__/secrets-service.test.ts
server/src/__tests__/secrets-routes.test.ts
ui/src/lib/secret-delivery.test.ts
ui/src/components/AgentSecretAccessEditor.test.tsx` — 5 files, 122 tests
passed.
- Security follow-up: `pnpm exec vitest run
server/src/__tests__/agent-secrets-routes.test.ts
server/src/__tests__/secrets-service.test.ts` — 2 files, 73 tests passed
after active-run and version-consistency fixes.
- Final-head CI: all feature, typecheck, build, e2e, security, and
review gates pass; `General tests (server (1/3))` remains red after one
rerun because unrelated `heartbeat-retry-scheduling.test.ts` cleanup
deletes `heartbeat_runs` before referenced `activity_log` rows.
- `pnpm --filter @paperclipai/server typecheck` — passed.
- `pnpm --filter @paperclipai/shared typecheck` — passed.
- `pnpm --filter @paperclipai/ui typecheck` — passed.
- `pnpm check:token-gates` — feature-local arbitrary-value violations
fixed; command still reports five unchanged `#9627` literals outside
this PR.
- End-to-end QA passed all eight acceptance criteria: grant/list, fetch,
dual audit, env-implies-read, denial matrix, revocation, UI rendering,
and env-injection regression. Evidence:
https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/pull/9921#issuecomment-5027455492
- Security review returned PASS-with-required-changes; the
implementation uses the required dedicated binding-enforcing resolver,
run-bound JWT restriction, run-derived overlays, minimal metadata, and a
resolver redaction-registration hook. Evidence:
https://github.com/paperclipai/paperclip/pull/9921#issuecomment-5027455382
## Risks
- A compromised agent can exfiltrate any secret explicitly granted to
it; explicit company-scoped/run-scoped grants, revocation, and audit
reduce but cannot remove that inherent capability risk.
- The resolver invokes a redaction-registration hook before returning
values, but the current route has no persistent cross-request per-run
redaction registry. Paperclip-owned later comments/events therefore
cannot yet guarantee automatic scrubbing of a deliberately copied
fetched value; QA classified this as non-blocking residual hardening.
- Audit-event insertion currently fails open if the security-event
insert itself fails; the operator activity event provides partial
redundancy, but a future hardening change should define fail-closed
behavior for value delivery.
- This PR overlaps `ui/src/pages/Secrets.tsx` with #9918 and may require
a straightforward rebase after that PR moves.
> For core feature work, check [`ROADMAP.md`](ROADMAP.md) first and
discuss it in `#dev` before opening the PR. Feature PRs that overlap
with planned core work may need to be redirected — check the roadmap
first. See `CONTRIBUTING.md`.
## Model Used
- OpenAI Codex, `gpt-5.3-codex`, with reasoning, repository tool use,
terminal execution, Paperclip API access, and GitHub CLI capabilities.
Context-window size is not exposed by the runtime.
- Anthropic Claude Opus 4.8 with 1M context and tool use assisted with
the UI implementation commit.
## Checklist
- [x] I have included a thinking path that traces from project context
to this change
- [x] I have specified the model used (with version and capability
details)
- [x] I have checked ROADMAP.md and confirmed this PR does not duplicate
planned core work
- [x] I have searched GitHub for duplicate or related PRs and linked
them above
- [x] I have either (a) linked existing issues with `Fixes: #` / `Closes
#` / `Refs #` OR (b) described the issue in-PR following the relevant
issue template
- [x] I have not referenced internal/instance-local Paperclip issues or
links (only public GitHub `#NNN` / `github.com/paperclipai/paperclip`
URLs)
- [x] My branch name describes the change (e.g. `docs/...`, `fix/...`)
and contains no internal Paperclip ticket id or instance-derived details
- [x] I have run tests locally and they pass
- [x] I have added or updated tests where applicable
- [x] I have updated relevant documentation to reflect my changes
- [x] I have considered and documented any risks above
- [x] All Paperclip CI gates are green
- [x] Greptile is 5/5 with no open P2s, recommendations, or follow-ups
- [x] I will address all Greptile and reviewer comments before
requesting merge
---------
Co-authored-by: Paperclip <noreply@paperclip.ing>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Dotta