bcquality/microsoft/knowledge/security/use-secrettext-for-credentials.md
Jesper Schulz-Wedde 62dabf9a11 Co-locate AL samples next to their knowledge articles
The /samples/ top-level tree is replaced with sibling files in each
knowledge-layer folder. An article and its demonstrations now live
side-by-side:

  microsoft/knowledge/<domain>/<slug>.md
  microsoft/knowledge/<domain>/<slug>.good.al
  microsoft/knowledge/<domain>/<slug>.bad.al

Rationale:
- Proximity. An article and its paired samples are one unit; the
  filesystem now reflects that.
- Layer ownership. Samples inherit layer precedence for free -- a
  /custom/ fork can override an article and its samples atomically,
  which the shared /samples/ tree previously made awkward.
- Trivial migration path. Action-skill source globs
  (*/knowledge/<domain>/**/*.md) are unchanged; sample discovery is a
  sibling-filename lookup.

Changes:
- git mv of all 65 sample files from samples/<domain>/<slug>/{bad,good}.al
  to microsoft/knowledge/<domain>/<slug>.{bad,good}.al (history preserved).
- Update See-sample references in all 37 articles that ship samples.
- skills/read.md: replace the no-code-blocks bullet with a pointer to a
  new Sample files section that fully specifies the sibling convention,
  the kinds (good/bad + forward-compatible), multi-technology rules,
  demonstration-only status, and layer-precedence behaviour.
- skills/write.md: update the samples pointer to match.
- README.md: annotate the knowledge tree with the sample sibling shape.
- samples/README.md deleted; content lifted into skills/read.md.
- Both generators (C:\temp\gen_performance_knowledge.py,
  C:\temp\gen_security_knowledge.py) updated to emit at the new paths
  and to stop writing samples/README.md. Re-running them is idempotent
  against the committed layout.

Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
2026-04-17 13:45:33 +02:00

1.5 KiB

bc-version domain keywords technologies countries application-area
26..28
security
secrettext
credentials
debugger
type
al
w1
all

Use SecretText for credentials

Seed article. Converted from an existing security-review prompt to bootstrap the BCQuality security corpus. Domain stewards should expand, restructure, and refine as needed.

Description

SecretText is a compile-time-checked AL type for credentials, API keys, tokens, and similar sensitive values. The compiler rejects literal assignments to SecretText and blocks implicit conversion back to Text or Code, which prevents many accidental disclosures via logs, errors, and the debugger (regular and snapshot). A SecretText value remains opaque throughout its lifetime.

Best Practice

Type every credential-carrying variable, procedure parameter, and return as SecretText. Compose values with SecretStrSubstNo (see compose-secrets-with-secretstrsubstno). For HttpClient integration, see use-secrettext-with-httpclient. When a secret must be extracted from a Text source, contain that conversion in a NonDebuggable procedure (see use-nondebuggable-when-parsing-secrets).

See sample: use-secrettext-for-credentials.good.al.

Anti Pattern

Passing credentials around as Text or Code parameters. Every such variable is visible in the debugger and may be captured by error handlers, logs, and telemetry that treat Text as non-sensitive.

See sample: use-secrettext-for-credentials.bad.al.