feat(work): headless Secret Service for gcx keychain tokens
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gcx stores its OAuth access and refresh tokens in the system keychain
unconditionally -- its config file keeps only opaque `keychain:gcx:v2:...`
handles -- and exposes no plaintext fallback. With nothing owning
org.freedesktop.secrets on this headless WSL box, `gcx login` authenticates
against Grafana and then dies writing its config: "The name is not activatable".

Add services.headlessSecretService: gnome-keyring as a systemd --user service,
unlocking the login keyring at start. home-manager's own services.gnome-keyring
does not fit here on two counts -- it is WantedBy graphical-session-pre.target,
which never activates without a desktop session, and it passes no --unlock, so
writes would block on a GUI prompter that does not exist.

Only the secrets component is started. The ssh component is deliberately off: it
would claim SSH_AUTH_SOCK and displace services.ssh-agent, breaking SSH auth and
signed commits.

The unlock password defaults to a random one generated on first activation under
$XDG_DATA_HOME. The passwordFile option is the seam for supplying it from an
agenix secret instead, once that lands.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Emma Thorpe
2026-08-11 15:03:18 +01:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent cc6cb24c78
commit 10f713103c
6 changed files with 191 additions and 3 deletions
+34
View File
@@ -38,6 +38,40 @@ the daily headless **Renovate PR review** timer firing — defined in
(imported only from `work.nix`, so it exists on this machine alone). See that
file's header for the auth (Vertex AI ADC), triage policy, and caveats.
## Secret Service (keychain)
`work.nix` sets `services.headlessSecretService.enable = true`, which runs
`gnome-keyring` as a `systemd --user` service owning `org.freedesktop.secrets`
on the session bus, with the login keyring unlocked at start.
This exists for **gcx**, the Grafana Cloud CLI. gcx stores its OAuth access and
refresh tokens in the keychain unconditionally (its config keeps only opaque
`keychain:gcx:v2:...` handles) and has no plaintext fallback, so without a
Secret Service `gcx login` authenticates and then fails to persist with "The
name is not activatable".
Home-manager's own `services.gnome-keyring` does not work here: it is
`WantedBy=graphical-session-pre.target`, which never activates on this headless
box, and it cannot unlock the keyring. See
[`../../home/secret-service.nix`](../../home/secret-service.nix) for the full
rationale and the security trade-off of an auto-unlocked keyring.
Only the `secrets` component is started. The `ssh` component is deliberately off
— it would claim `SSH_AUTH_SOCK` and displace `services.ssh-agent`, breaking SSH
auth and signed commits.
Checking it:
```sh
systemctl --user status headless-secret-service
busctl --user list | grep secrets # expect org.freedesktop.secrets
secret-tool search --all service gcx # inspect what gcx stored
gcx config check # end-to-end
```
If the keyring password is ever lost or changed, the login keyring cannot be
unlocked: delete `~/.local/share/keyrings` and re-run `gcx login`.
## stateVersion
`system.stateVersion = "24.11"` — the release this box was first installed on.