GIT: How to copy environments (environment variables, enviroment secrets)

[SINGSHA06]

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Hi team,

We have several instances of our application for which the environments need to set in GIT. Most of the details are similar across the instances and creating environment with variables and secrets is a manual and repetitive task across the enironements.

Can you please let us know if there is a way in GIT to copy environments (environment variables, enviroment secrets) something like import/export, etc. ?

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[Chanduporalla]

Hi!

GitHub currently does not offer a native feature to directly copy or export/import environments, environment variables, or secrets between different repositories or environments within the same repository. However, there are some approaches you can take to make managing environments more efficient:

1. GitHub Actions for Secrets Management

You can use GitHub Actions to automate setting up environments across different repositories. Although GitHub doesn't provide a direct copy/paste method for environments, you can create workflows that:

Retrieve secrets or environment variables from a shared location (like a secure server or secret manager like AWS Secrets Manager, HashiCorp Vault, etc.).
Automatically deploy those variables across multiple repositories or environments.

Example of how you can use GitHub Actions with external secret managers:

yaml

jobs:
setup-environment:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Retrieve secrets from AWS Secrets Manager
uses: aws-actions/aws-secretsmanager-get-secret@v1
with:
secret-id: my-environment-secrets
env:
AWS_REGION: us-west-2

  - name: Set environment variables
    run: echo "MY_SECRET=${{ secrets.MY_SECRET }}" >> $GITHUB_ENV

2. Use GitHub REST API to Automate Environment Setup

You can use the GitHub REST API to automate the creation of environments and their secrets across multiple instances. This approach would require scripting but allows you to create, update, and manage environment variables or secrets programmatically.

Use the POST /repos/{owner}/{repo}/environments/{environment_name}/secrets API to create or update environment secrets in an automated way.
You can also automate the setup of environments using the PUT /repos/{owner}/{repo}/environments/{environment_name} API.

Example in Python:

python

import requests

GITHUB_TOKEN = "your_personal_access_token"
headers = {"Authorization": f"token {GITHUB_TOKEN}"}

def set_secret(repo, environment, secret_name, secret_value):
url = f"https://api.github.com/repos/{repo}/environments/{environment}/secrets/{secret_name}"
data = {
"encrypted_value": secret_value # You'd need to encrypt the secret first using the public key
}
response = requests.put(url, headers=headers, json=data)
print(response.status_code, response.text)

set_secret("your-org/your-repo", "production", "MY_SECRET", "super_secret_value")

You can loop through multiple repositories or environments in your script.
3. Use Terraform for GitHub Environment and Secret Management

If you're looking for an infrastructure-as-code (IaC) approach, you can use Terraform to manage GitHub resources. Terraform’s GitHub provider allows you to define environments, secrets, and repositories as code. This way, you can define the environments once in a .tf file and apply them to all your instances.

Example with Terraform:

hcl

provider "github" {
token = var.github_token
}

resource "github_repository_environment" "production" {
repository = "your-repo"
environment = "production"
}

resource "github_actions_secret" "secret" {
repository = "your-repo"
secret_name = "MY_SECRET"
plaintext_value = "super_secret_value"
environment = github_repository_environment.production.environment
}

This allows you to version control your environments and secrets and reuse them across repositories or instances.
4. Manual Export/Import (Via Scripts)

You can write a simple script to export environment variables and secrets from one repository and import them into another using the GitHub API. This process can be automated but is somewhat manual since you'd need to handle the secrets securely (encrypt/decrypt them) during the transfer.
5. Shared Configuration Files

If most of the configuration is similar across environments, you could manage shared configuration files (like .env files) within the repository. While GitHub doesn’t directly support .env file injection, you can read and apply these settings within your application or GitHub Actions workflows.
Conclusion:

If you want to avoid repetitive manual work, leveraging the GitHub API, GitHub Actions, Terraform, or an external secrets manager is the best path forward. This way, you can automate and synchronize environment variables and secrets between different environments or repositories.

Let me know if you need further details on any of these options!