Lade

Lade (/leɪd/) is a tool allowing you to automatically load secrets from your preferred vault into environment variables or files. It limits the exposure of secrets to the time the command requiring the secrets lives.

Getting started

You can download the binary executable from releases page on GitHub, make it executable and add it to your $PATH or use the method below to automate those steps.

# recommended way
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zifeo/lade/main/installer.sh | bash

# or alternative ways via cargo
cargo install lade --locked
cargo install --git https://github.com/zifeo/lade --locked

# upgrade
lade upgrade

# install shell hooks (only required once)
lade install

Compatible shells: Fish, Bash, Zsh

Compatible vaults: Infisical, 1Password CLI, Doppler, Vault, Passbolt

Features

Shell hooks - Run lade install once. Secrets load automatically around every matching command; lade off / lade on to pause.

Secret resolution & command matching - Load from Infisical, 1Password, Doppler, Vault, Passbolt, the file loader (file://…?query=…), or inline values. Lade merges every lade.yml from the current directory up to the repo root. Each block is a regex on the command you run.

Manual injection & redaction - lade inject when hooks are off or in scripts. Unless --no-mask is set, values fetched from loaders are masked in stdout/stderr as ${VAR_NAME:-REDACTED}. The raw loader values are not (already plaintext in lade.yml).

Secrets as files - file: under . writes JSON/YAML for the command; Lade removes the file when the command exits.

Per-user secrets - Map usernames to different values; lade user selects who you are ("." is the default).

Disclaimer - Optional disclaimer: on a rule; type yes before secrets load.

lade eval - Resolve one URI and print the value (uses the same loaders as lade.yml).

Usage

See lade.yml or examples/tape/lade.yml for configuration samples.

Per-user secrets

command regex:
  SAME_SECRET_FOR_EVERYONE: hello_world
  SECRET_FOR_THE_USER:
    alex: alex_secret
    zifeo: zifeo_secret
    .: default_secret

lade user              # show currently set user
lade user tonystark    # set user to tonystark
lade user --reset      # reset, falling back to the OS user

Outputting as files & interactive disclaimer

Both options live under . on a rule.

command regex:
  .:
    file: secrets.yml
    disclaimer: "This command will use your API token."
  SECRET: op://...

Loaders

Most of the vault loaders use their native CLI to operate. This means you must have them installed locally and your login/credentials must be valid. Lade may evolve by integrating directly with the corresponding API, but this is left as future work.

Infisical loader

command regex:
  EXPORTED_ENV_VAR: infisical://DOMAIN/PROJECT_ID/ENV_NAME/SECRET_NAME

Frequent domain(s): app.infisical.com.

Note: the /api is automatically added to the DOMAIN. This source currently only support a single domain (you cannot be logged into multiple ones).

1Password loader

command regex:
  EXPORTED_ENV_VAR: op://DOMAIN/VAULT_NAME/SECRET_NAME/FIELD_NAME

Frequent domain(s): my.1password.eu, my.1password.com or my.1password.ca.

In CI/CD OP_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN is typically injected directly by the platform. For cases where the token itself is stored in another vault, add 1password_service_account to the . config block. Lade resolves that URI first - using any loader - and injects the result as OP_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN before resolving the remaining op:// secrets. This enables recursive cross-vault lookups: the token lives in Vault or Infisical, and the actual secrets live in 1Password.

Per-user mapping lets each developer or environment use a different source for the token, or skip it entirely with null to fall back on their local op session.

command regex:
  .:
    # simple: token stored in 1Password itself (requires an active op session)
    1password_service_account: op://DOMAIN/VAULT/ITEM/FIELD
    # or per-user: CI pulls token from Vault, others use their local op session
    # 1password_service_account:
    #   ci: vault://DOMAIN/MOUNT/KEY/FIELD
  EXPORTED_ENV_VAR: op://...

Doppler loader

command regex:
  EXPORTED_ENV_VAR: doppler://DOMAIN/PROJECT_NAME/ENV_NAME/SECRET_NAME

Frequent domain(s): api.doppler.com.

Vault loader

command regex:
  EXPORTED_ENV_VAR: vault://DOMAIN/MOUNT/KEY/FIELD

Passbolt loader

command regex:
  EXPORTED_ENV_VAR: passbolt://DOMAIN/RESOURCE_ID/FIELD

File loader

Supports INI, JSON, YAML and TOML files.

command regex:
  EXPORTED_ENV_VAR: file://PATH?query=.fields[0].field

PATH can be relative to the lade directory, start with ~/$HOME or absolute (not recommended when sharing the project with others as they likely have different paths).

Raw loader

command regex:
  EXPORTED_ENV_VAR: "value"

Escaping a value with the ! prefix enforces the use of the raw loader and double !! escapes itself.

LLM Agent Hooks

Lade integrates with agentic tools to automatically inject secrets into agent shell commands.

lade hook  # reads JSON from stdin, outputs platform-specific response
# example Cursor config:
cat .cursor/hooks.json

Cursor

When CURSOR_VERSION is detected. Docs

.cursor/hooks.json:

{
  "version": 1,
  "hooks": { "preToolUse": [{ "command": "lade hook", "matcher": "Shell" }] }
}

Claude Code

When CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR is detected. Docs

.claude/settings.json:

{
  "hooks": {
    "PreToolUse": [
      {
        "matcher": "Bash",
        "hooks": [{ "type": "command", "command": "lade hook" }]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Development

eval "$(lade off)"
eval "$(cargo run -- on)"
echo a $A1 $A2 $B1 $B2 $B3 $C1 $C2 $C3
cargo run -- -vvv set echo a
cargo run -- inject echo a
eval "$(cargo run -- off)"
eval "$(lade on)"