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Secret Placeholder Conventions

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Secret placeholder conventions

Use placeholders that are human-readable but do not resemble real secrets.

  • Prefer descriptive values like example-openai-key-not-real or example-discord-bot-token.
  • For shell snippets, prefer ${OPENAI_API_KEY} over inline token-like strings.
  • Keep examples obviously fake and scoped to purpose (provider, channel, auth type).

Avoid these patterns in docs

  • Literal PEM private-key header or footer text.
  • Prefixes that resemble live credentials, for example sk-..., xoxb-..., AKIA....
  • Realistic-looking bearer tokens copied from runtime logs.

Example

bash
# Goodexport OPENAI_API_KEY="example-openai-key-not-real" # Better (when the doc is about env wiring)export OPENAI_API_KEY="${OPENAI_API_KEY}"
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