diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index a132795..983d75f 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -832,3 +832,13 @@ before `nixos-rebuild switch` to provision initrd secrets before actually using them in the initrd. In the future, we hope to extend NixOS to allow keys to be provisioned in the bootloader install phase. + +### Using secrets at evaluation time + +It is not possible to use secrets at evaluation time of nix code. This is +because sops-nix decrypts secrets only in the activation phase of nixos i.e. in +`nixos-rebuild switch` on the target machine. If you rely on this feature for +some secrets, you should also include solutions that allow secrets to be stored +securely in your version control, e.g. +[git-agecrypt](https://github.com/vlaci/git-agecrypt). These types of solutions +can be used together with sops-nix.