[FEAT]

[mneverov]

It would be nice to have possibility to share the output from the vault action.
Currently, with the setup below if I reference the output in another job it is empty. My understanding is that the output is only available within same job for subsequent steps.

name: Secrets

on:
  workflow_call:
    outputs:
      TOKEN:
        value: ${{ jobs.secrets.outputs.TOKEN }}

jobs:
  secrets:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      id-token: write
      contents: read
    outputs:
      TOKEN: ${{ steps.secrets.outputs.TOKEN }}
    steps:
      - name: Import Secrets
        id: secrets
        uses: hashicorp/vault-action@v2
        with:
            ...
            secrets: |
            somepath VAR | TOKEN

[fairclothjm]

@mneverov Hello, I am sorry you are having trouble.

To use job outputs in a dependent job, you can use the needs context.
For more information, see "Context and expression syntax for GitHub Actions."

Hopefully that helps! However, I am not sure how this will work with workflow_call.

We reserve github issues for bug reports and feature requests, which this doesn't appear to be. As such, I'm going to close this and suggest that you ask about this at Vault.

[mneverov]

hi @fairclothjm, the same holds true for the dependent jobs, i.e. the outputs are empty. It only works inside the same job - the secrets are shared between steps.

[fairclothjm]

@mneverov

[fairclothjm]

@mneverov Thanks for the feedback. Could you please provide a minimal config that reproduces the issue?

[mneverov]

@fairclothjm ptal

name: Test

on:
  pull_request:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  get-secrets:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      id-token: write
      contents: read
    outputs:
      TOKEN: ${{ steps.secrets.outputs.TOKEN }}
    steps:
      - name: Import Secrets
        id: secrets
        uses: hashicorp/vault-action@v2
        with:
          url: <some-url>
          method: jwt
          role: some-role
          jwtGithubAudience: sigstore
          exportEnv: true
          secrets: |
            /foo/bar VAR | TOKEN
      - name: print
        id: print
        run: |
          echo ${{ env.TOKEN }} # <--- prints *** 

  print:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: get-secrets
    steps:
      - name: print
        run: |
          echo ${{ env.TOKEN }} # <--- prints nothing
          echo ${{ needs.get-secrets.outputs.TOKEN }} # <--- prints nothing
          echo ${{ needs.get-secrets.result }} # <--- prints "success"

[maxcoulombe]

Hey @mneverov thanks for that example this is useful. I tried it on my side and can confirm that secrets pulled by vault-action cannot be transferred to other jobs via outputs. Sample code:

name: Cross-Job-Outputs

on:
  push:

jobs:
  job1:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    outputs:
      VAULT_ACTION: ${{ steps.vault-action.outputs.ACTION }}
      MANUAL_OUTPUT: ${{ steps.manual-output.outputs.MANUAL }}
    steps:
      - name: Vault Action
        id: vault-action
        uses: hashicorp/vault-action@v2.7.4
        with:
          url: ${{ secrets.VAULT_URL }}
          namespace: ${{ secrets.VAULT_NAMESPACE }}
          token: ${{ secrets.VAULT_TOKEN }}
          secrets: |
            secret/data/sample-secret first-secret | ACTION
      - name: Manual Output
        id: manual-output
        run: |
          echo "MANUAL=hello" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"

  job2:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    needs: job1
    steps:
      - name: print
        run: |
          echo Action:
          echo ${{ needs.job1.outputs.VAULT_ACTION }} <--- prints nothing
          echo Manual:
          echo ${{ needs.job1.outputs.MANUAL_OUTPUT }} <--- prints "hello", this method works

Unfortunately, it looks like a built-in behavior for GitHub Actions. Sensitive and masked outputs are skipped and unavailable to downstream jobs. A potential solution would be not to mask Vault secrets as requested in #322, but we feel like not treating Vault secrets as sensitive opens up too many risks even if it'd sometimes be convenient.

We can see in the execution results of the job define above that the vault-action output is explicitly skipped by GitHub:

Let us know if that explanation and reasoning make sense. If that's ok, I'll close this issue so we can consolidate the discussions in #322 as this would be the solution to share outputs across jobs if implemented.