DDEV Varlock

Overview

Varlock provides AI-safe .env files: schemas for agents, secrets for humans. It validates and type-checks environment variables, prevents secret leaks, and can resolve secrets from providers like 1Password, Infisical, and Doppler at runtime.

This add-on installs the Varlock CLI into the DDEV web container and wires it up to automatically load and validate your project’s environment variables on every ddev start.

Installation

ddev add-on get MetaSyntactical/ddev-varlock
ddev restart

After installation, make sure to commit the .ddev directory to version control.

Prerequisites

• Your project needs an existing .env.schema — this add-on doesn’t create one for you.

Usage

• ddev varlock [command] runs any Varlock CLI command inside the web container, e.g. ddev varlock load or ddev varlock run -- <command>.
• On every ddev start, a pre-start hook runs varlock load on the host to print a readable validation summary before the containers even come up — useful for catching a broken schema or missing credentials early, without waiting for a container boot. This is optional: if the Varlock CLI isn’t installed on your host, you’ll just see a notice and ddev start continues normally — only the early feedback is skipped, not the actual secret injection below.
• The secrets actually reach your app via .ddev/web-entrypoint.d/varlock.sh. DDEV sources this script inside the web container right before starting nginx and php-fpm, so eval "$(varlock load --format=shell)" there injects resolved values straight into the environment every request sees via getenv()/$_ENV — no need to wrap your app’s own start command.
• To resolve secrets, export the credentials for your provider in your host shell environment before running ddev start. These are only forwarded to the web container at runtime and are never written into the project:
  • OP_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN — 1Password
  • INFISICAL_CLIENT_ID + INFISICAL_CLIENT_SECRET — Infisical (Universal Auth)
  • DOPPLER_TOKEN — Doppler
  • AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID + AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY — AWS Secrets Manager
  • VAULT_TOKEN — HashiCorp Vault

Obtaining provider credentials

• 1Password — create a service account via the web UI, or from the CLI:

  op service-account create "ddev-varlock" --vault "<vault-name>:read_items" --expires-in 90d
  

  The token is only printed once — capture it as OP_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN. See the Varlock 1Password plugin docs for .env.schema setup (its default config var is OP_TOKEN, so reference $OP_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_TOKEN explicitly in @initOp() to match this add-on).

• HashiCorp Vault — authenticate and mint a token:

  export VAULT_ADDR="https://vault.example.com"
  vault token create -policy="ddev-varlock" -ttl=24h -format=json | jq -r '.auth.client_token'
  

  Export the result as VAULT_TOKEN. See the Varlock Vault plugin docs for .env.schema setup.

• Infisical, Doppler, AWS Secrets Manager — issue credentials from each provider’s own console or CLI; see the full plugin list for .env.schema setup per provider.

Scope credentials as narrowly as possible (read-only, single vault/policy, short TTL) rather than reusing a personal or admin token — they’ll sit in your host shell environment for the life of the session.

Configuration

Pinning the Varlock version

By default, the add-on installs the latest Varlock release every time the web image is built. To pin a specific version instead:

ddev dotenv set .ddev/.env.varlock --varlock-version=<version>
ddev restart

For example:

ddev dotenv set .ddev/.env.varlock --varlock-version=1.9.0
ddev restart

Use a plain semantic version without a v prefix (e.g. 1.9.0), matching the tags in the Varlock releases. Leave .ddev/.env.varlock absent, or its value empty, to keep installing the latest release on every build.

Make sure to commit .ddev/.env.varlock to version control once you’ve pinned a version.

Using a different secrets provider

Varlock supports many more providers than the ones listed above — for example Azure Key Vault, Google Secret Manager, Akeyless, Bitwarden, Keeper, Passbolt, Proton Pass, and Dashlane (see the full plugin list). Each has its own auth variable(s), e.g. Azure Key Vault needs AZURE_TENANT_ID, AZURE_CLIENT_ID, and AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET.

This add-on only pre-declares web_environment passthroughs for the most common providers. web_environment entries listed as a bare name (no =value) tell DDEV to forward that variable from your host shell into the web container at start time — the value itself is never written to .ddev/config.yaml, so it’s safe to add even for secrets.

To add support for another provider’s variable(s) in your project, run:

ddev config --web-environment-add="AZURE_TENANT_ID"
ddev config --web-environment-add="AZURE_CLIENT_ID"
ddev config --web-environment-add="AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET"
ddev restart

This appends the passthrough entries to your project’s own .ddev/config.yaml (under web_environment), on top of the ones this add-on already registers globally — no need to fork or modify the add-on itself. Reference the resulting variables in your .env.schema the same way as the built-in providers (e.g. @initAzureKeyVault(tenantId=$AZURE_TENANT_ID, ...)), export the values in your host shell, then ddev restart.

Credits

Maintained by MetaSyntactical