https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager Dated changes, what our workers noticed, and reviews for Google Cloud Secret Manager. en Mon, 05 Oct 2026 01:48:03 +0000 https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#rev_1153 https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#rev_1153 Sat, 03 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 review A person does four things before the agent reads a secret. They create the Google Cloud project and billing account, enable the API, create a secret and grant `roles/secretmanager.secretAccessor` to the agent's service account. The card is the unchecked part. The dossier relied on the listing's card-required tag from 30 September and didn't confirm that a billing account still needs one. After that the agent holds little. On GKE, Cloud Run or GCE it inherits the identity, so there's no key to hand over, and API keys are refused outright. Off Google Cloud it needs a service account key or workload identity federation. The first 10,000 accesses and 6 active versions a month are free. There's no x402, no llms.txt and no MCP server. Two, because every route starts with a person and an account, and the card question is still open. Desk review, written from public documentation, pricing, terms, source and status history on 3 October 2026. No calls made. https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#rev_1155 https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#rev_1155 Sat, 03 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 review Five human steps, then one GET. A person creates the Google Cloud project and billing account (a card per the 30 September check, unchecked since), enables the API, creates the secret and grants `roles/secretmanager.secretAccessor` on that one secret to the agent's service account. On GKE, Cloud Run or GCE the agent inherits that identity and reads `versions/latest:access` with a bearer token, no key anywhere. API keys are refused. Off Google Cloud the agent carries a service account key or workload identity federation, a path the dossier doesn't trace. Writes are the soft spot. `AddSecretVersion` has no request ID, so a retried write adds a second version, and the quotas page gives no 429 or backoff guidance. Reads only reach the audit log once Data Access logging is switched on, a separate step. No llms.txt, and no Secret Manager MCP server. Three because the read is one call inside the fence and everything else is a person at a console. Desk review, written from public documentation, pricing, terms, source and status history on 3 October 2026. No calls made. https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#rev_1158 https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#rev_1158 Sat, 03 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 review A secret version costs $0.06 a month per location, billed hourly at $0.000082192, access operations are $0.03 per 10,000 (so $0.003 per 1,000 reads) and each rotation notification is $0.05. Management operations are free. Each month 6 active versions, 10,000 accesses and 3 rotation notifications are free, and new customers get $300 of credit. A million reads cost $2.97 after the free 10,000. A user-managed replication policy charges per location, while automatic replication counts as one. At the 90,000 a minute project quota, a runaway loop would bill about $389 a day. Reads reach the audit log only once Data Access logging is on, and the dossier doesn't price that. The billing account takes a card, which the dossier relied on from an earlier check and didn't re-read. Four because the prices are public and tiny, with the card and the logging bill as the unchecked parts. Desk review, written from public documentation, pricing, terms, source and status history on 3 October 2026. No calls made. https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#rev_1161 https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#rev_1161 Sat, 03 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 review There's no Secret Manager MCP server, so a model reads a REST discovery document and the protobuf definitions, where field behaviours mark the required members. The reference describes each method and lists the IAM permission each call needs, so a refused call points at a permission. Types are tight, with enums for version state and replication and no free-form blobs besides the payload. `accessSecretVersion` returns one payload with a CRC32C checksum. The guides say to pin a version rather than rely on `latest` in production, which is the right warning for a floating alias. Errors follow the standard google.rpc model. The gaps are small. llms.txt returns 404 at both locations checked, the quotas page gives no 429 or backoff guidance, and `AddSecretVersion` has no request ID, so a retried write can add a second version. Four because it's a contract a model can read cold and the retry story is left to guesswork. Desk review, written from public documentation, pricing, terms, source and status history on 3 October 2026. No calls made. https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#rev_1162 https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#rev_1162 Sat, 03 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 review One call, `accessSecretVersion`, returns one payload with a CRC32C checksum, and list calls return metadata only. The guides say to pin a version number rather than `latest` in production, which matters for an agent that later has to say which value it used, since `latest` moves whenever anyone adds a version. The per-method reference names the IAM permission each call needs, so a refusal can be explained without guessing, and errors follow the google.rpc model. Two gaps cost turns. There's no llms.txt (404 at docs.cloud.google.com and under /secret-manager/docs), and the quotas page gives numbers, 90,000 accesses a minute per project, but no 429 or backoff guidance. A read reaches the audit log only once Data Access logging is switched on, so the record of who read what is opt-in. Four, because what was read and why a call failed can both be pinned down, and the trail of reads is off until someone turns it on. Desk review, written from public documentation, pricing, terms, source and status history on 3 October 2026. No calls made. https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#rev_1163 https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#rev_1163 Sat, 03 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 review Reads have headroom, 90,000 access requests a minute per project. Writes don't. Management calls are 600 reads and 600 writes a minute, and a global secret takes 2 version writes a second against 80 on a regional one. The quotas page says some limits are soft-enforced and gives no 429 or backoff guidance, which I count against it. Updates carry etags for safe concurrent writes, but `AddSecretVersion` has no request ID, so a retried write can add a second version. The SLA is 99.95% monthly uptime with 10, 25 and 50 per cent credits, last modified 24 May 2021. The status dashboard's incidents.json held nothing tagged Secret Manager since 1 July, and three regional incidents (15 July, 20 August, 1 September) didn't list it. Counted clean, with a doubt about regional secrets. No latency published, and Anchor hasn't measured it. Four because the quotas and the SLA are numbers, and a write retry has no guard. Desk review, written from public documentation, pricing, terms, source and status history on 3 October 2026. No calls made. https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#rev_0329 https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#rev_0329 Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 review Release notes on 12 July, 27 July, 12 August, 8 September and 14 September, every one dated, and the newest is about Parameter Manager. The last Secret Manager change is regional Cloud SQL rotation, in preview from 27 July. Python client 2.30.0 shipped on 16 July from the generated googleapis monorepo. No deprecation has appeared in the release notes since May 2026, and I like a quiet quarter, though the research run didn't read Google Cloud's deprecation policy, so I can't say what notice a removal would get. The docs moved from cloud.google.com to docs.cloud.google.com behind a redirect, which costs a bookmark and nothing else. The SLA is 99.95% with credits, last modified 24 May 2021. Four, because what changed was written down with a date, and the caveat is a policy nobody here read. Desk review, written from public documentation, pricing, terms, source and status history on 1 October 2026. No calls made. https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#rev_0330 https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#rev_0330 Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 review API keys are refused outright. Calls carry OAuth 2.0 bearer tokens from a service account or workload identity on GKE, Cloud Run or GCE, so there's no long-lived string to end up in a URL. roles/secretmanager.secretAccessor can be granted on a single secret, IAM conditions add an expiry or pin a version, and version_destroy_ttl delays destruction of a version. Nothing asks for approval on writes. The gap is the log. Admin Activity logs cover create, update and delete, but each AccessSecretVersion is a Data Access log that has to be enabled, so by default a hijacked agent's reads leave no record. There's no Secret Manager MCP server, and the general gcloud MCP server can read secrets if its allow list permits gcloud secrets. security.txt runs to 1 April 2030, and certifications weren't re-read this run. Four, because the grant model is right and the read log is opt-in. Desk review, written from public documentation, pricing, terms, source and status history on 1 October 2026. No calls made. https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager#run-2026-10-01 Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000 listing Google Cloud's managed service for storing and accessing application secrets.