secretKeyRef

SecretKeyRef is a reference mechanism used in Kubernetes to obtain a value from a Secret for a container’s configuration, most commonly to populate environment variables. It points to a specific key within a Secret rather than the entire Secret, allowing for granular access control and flexible deployment.

In manifests, SecretKeyRef appears as part of an environment variable source (EnvVarSource) under secretKeyRef. The essential fields are name and key: name specifies the name of the Secret resource, and key selects the specific data item within that Secret. An optional field, optional, can be set to true to indicate that the key may be missing without causing the pod to fail; if the key is missing and optional is false, the pod will error at startup.

Usage examples include setting an environment variable from a Secret: env: - name: DB_PASSWORD valueFrom: secretKeyRef: name: db-secret key: password. SecretKeyRef can also be used in other contexts that consume a secret key, depending on the API version and tooling.

Operational considerations: Secrets in Kubernetes are stored as base64-encoded data and are subject to RBAC controls. Values loaded via SecretKeyRef are resolved at container startup; they do not automatically refresh in a running container when the underlying Secret changes. If dynamic updates are required, restarting the pod or redeploying the workload is usually necessary. Alternatives include envFrom to load all keys from a Secret or using mounted Secret volumes for broader refresh behavior.