DagFlux treats every credential as a first-class secret. They are encrypted at rest using
the operating system's secure storage and decrypted only at the moment a connection or AI
call is made.
What's encrypted
Two kinds of secrets are kept separately:
AI provider keys — your OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, and Hugging Face
keys, stored as a single encrypted bag. You can set, replace, or remove keys at any time from
the settings screen.
Per-connection credentials — for every saved connection, the sensitive fields
(passwords, API keys, OAuth tokens, etc.) live in a separate encrypted store keyed by connection
id. Updating a saved connection's credentials automatically closes any cached pooled connection
so the next query reconnects with the new values.
macOS
Credentials stored in Keychain with 256-bit AES encryption
Windows
Uses Windows Credential Manager with DPAPI encryption
Linux
Integrates with Secret Service API (GNOME Keyring, KWallet)
How a query gets its credentials
When you run a query, run a workflow, or open a preview:
The interactive layer asks the background engine to do the work.
The background engine looks up the connection's secret part by id, decrypts it, and merges it with the public configuration.
The merged configuration is handed to the connector for that one call.
Nothing about the secret crosses back into the interactive layer.
Security Note
Credentials are only decrypted in memory at the moment they're needed for a connection,
and are never written to workflow files or logs.
OAuth-based connections
Some integrations (Google Drive, Google Sheets, OneDrive, SharePoint, etc.) use OAuth instead
of static credentials. For those, the connection form shows an "Authorize" button. When you
click it:
DagFlux opens your default browser at the provider's authorisation page. A one-time random
state value is generated to prevent cross-site forgery.
While you're authorising, DagFlux runs a small local listener that the provider can
redirect back to.
After you approve access in the browser, the provider redirects to the local listener with
a one-time code. DagFlux exchanges that code for access and refresh tokens.
The tokens are saved into the encrypted credential store for the connection.
If you close the connection dialog before authorising, the local listener is shut down so
the port is freed.
The whole authorisation window is five minutes. After that the local listener times out and
you have to start over.
