ci-cd-auth

name

ci-cd-auth

description

This skill should be used when the user asks to "use Infisical in CI/CD", "Infisical machine identity", "infisical login universal-auth", "authenticate Infisical without a browser", "Infisical in Docker", "inject secrets in a pipeline", "Infisical Kubernetes/AWS/GCP/Azure auth", or "bootstrap a self-hosted Infisical" — non-interactive Infisical CLI authentication and secret injection for automation.

Infisical CLI — CI/CD & Machine-Identity Auth

For pipelines, containers, and servers, authenticate with a machine identity instead of infisical login (browser). The pattern is always: log in to get a short-lived access token, export it as INFISICAL_TOKEN, then run normal commands. Prefer machine identities over the deprecated service tokens.

Universal Auth (most common)

Create a machine identity with Universal Auth in the Infisical UI, then in the pipeline:

export INFISICAL_TOKEN=$(infisical login \
  --method=universal-auth \
  --client-id="$INFISICAL_CLIENT_ID" \
  --client-secret="$INFISICAL_CLIENT_SECRET" \
  --silent --plain)

infisical run --projectId="$PROJECT_ID" --env=prod -- npm run build

• --plain prints only the JWT; --silent suppresses update notices — together they make the output safe to capture.
• Credentials can also come from INFISICAL_UNIVERSAL_AUTH_CLIENT_ID / INFISICAL_UNIVERSAL_AUTH_CLIENT_SECRET.
• Once INFISICAL_TOKEN is set, every subsequent command auto-detects it.
• With machine-identity auth there is no .infisical.json, so pass --projectId explicitly.
• In production, also set export INFISICAL_DISABLE_UPDATE_CHECK=true.

Native cloud / platform auth (no stored secret)

Each method exchanges a platform-issued identity for an Infisical token — no client secret to manage:

# Kubernetes (uses the pod's service-account token)
infisical login --method=kubernetes --machine-identity-id="$MI_ID" \
  --service-account-token-path=/var/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token --silent --plain

# AWS IAM
infisical login --method=aws-iam --machine-identity-id="$MI_ID" --silent --plain

# GCP (ID token on GCE/Cloud Run, or IAM service-account key)
infisical login --method=gcp-id-token --machine-identity-id="$MI_ID" --silent --plain
infisical login --method=gcp-iam --machine-identity-id="$MI_ID" \
  --service-account-key-file-path=/path/key.json --silent --plain

# Azure
infisical login --method=azure --machine-identity-id="$MI_ID" --silent --plain

# OIDC / generic JWT (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, etc.)
infisical login --method=oidc-auth --machine-identity-id="$MI_ID" --jwt="$ID_TOKEN" --silent --plain

Renew an access token

infisical token renew "$INFISICAL_TOKEN"

Docker

Install the CLI in the image (see the setup skill), then make infisical run the entrypoint so the container fetches secrets at startup:

# Recommended: machine identity at runtime
CMD ["infisical", "run", "--projectId", "your-project-id", "--", "npm", "run", "start"]

Pass the token in at docker run time:

export INFISICAL_TOKEN=$(infisical login --method=universal-auth \
  --client-id="$ID" --client-secret="$SECRET" --plain --silent)
docker run --env INFISICAL_TOKEN=$INFISICAL_TOKEN your-image

Entrypoint script that logs in inside the container, then execs the app:

#!/bin/sh
export INFISICAL_TOKEN=$(infisical login --method=universal-auth \
  --client-id="$INFISICAL_CLIENT_ID" \
  --client-secret="$INFISICAL_CLIENT_SECRET" --plain --silent)
exec infisical run --projectId "$PROJECT_ID" --env "$APP_ENV" \
  --domain "$INFISICAL_API_URL" -- node server.js

In Docker Compose, set env_file or environment: [INFISICAL_TOKEN] on the service and use the same CMD.

GitHub Actions sketch

- name: Build with secrets
  env:
    INFISICAL_CLIENT_ID:     ${{ secrets.INFISICAL_CLIENT_ID }}
    INFISICAL_CLIENT_SECRET: ${{ secrets.INFISICAL_CLIENT_SECRET }}
    PROJECT_ID:              ${{ vars.INFISICAL_PROJECT_ID }}
    INFISICAL_DISABLE_UPDATE_CHECK: "true"
  run: |
    export INFISICAL_TOKEN=$(infisical login --method=universal-auth \
      --client-id="$INFISICAL_CLIENT_ID" --client-secret="$INFISICAL_CLIENT_SECRET" --silent --plain)
    infisical run --projectId="$PROJECT_ID" --env=prod -- npm run build

Bootstrap a fresh self-hosted instance

Headless first-run setup that creates the admin user, organization, and an instance-admin machine identity:

infisical bootstrap \
  --domain="$INFISICAL_API_URL" \
  --email="$ADMIN_EMAIL" \
  --password="$ADMIN_PASSWORD" \
  --organization="$ORG_NAME" \
  --ignore-if-bootstrapped

The JSON output includes the instance-admin token — treat it like root credentials. For Kubernetes, add --output=k8-secret with --k8-secret-name / --k8-secret-namespace to emit a Secret manifest.

Self-hosted note

Set INFISICAL_API_URL (preferred) or pass --domain on every command including login — historically login did not always honor --domain for self-hosted flows, so the env var is the reliable choice.