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+---
+id: plugin-ecosystem/a-plugin-declares-its-secret-purposes-and-the
+title: 'A plugin declares its secret purposes, and the build checks it only uses those'
+theme: plugin-ecosystem
+status: backburner
+priority: low
+created: 2026-08-25
+date_source: stated
+order: 4
+---
+
+**A plugin declares its secret purposes in its manifest, and `docs:check` fails if it encrypts or
+decrypts under one it did not declare.** Wanted 2026-08-25, explicitly **not urgent** — the owner's
+call was to keep the current system and catch this in plugin review instead. This is what makes that
+review mechanical rather than remembered.
+
+## What is true today
+
+`encryptSecret(purpose: string, plaintext)` and `decryptSecret(purpose: string, blob)` in
+`src/databases/officer_db/src/crypto.ts` take the purpose as **a plain string the caller types**.
+Nothing checks who is asking. The vault plugin passes `'vault'`, invoices passes `'invoiceshelf'`,
+proxy-manager passes `'proxy-manager'` — and any of them could pass `'wallet'` and get a decrypted
+seed envelope back, if it can read the row.
+
+The per-purpose split in the secret store is real and worth having: one leaked key opens one plugin's
+columns rather than all of them (`docs/secret-store.md`). What is missing is anything stopping a plugin
+from naming a purpose that is not its own. **The isolation is a naming convention that everybody
+happens to follow.**
+
+## Why it cannot simply be enforced at the call
+
+In-process plugins run inside the platform's own process. Asking for a secret is a function call, and a
+function call carries no identity the callee can trust. Two designs would fix it properly and both were
+considered and declined on 2026-08-25 as too large for now:
+
+- **The plugin becomes its own process.** Sidecars already register over a socket and the platform can
+  tell those apart. Not worth converting an in-process plugin for this alone.
+- **The plugin never receives the key.** It asks the platform to do the sensitive operation — "issue a
+  certificate for mydomain.com" — and the platform does it, key in hand. Better, and a much bigger
+  change than it sounds, because every existing secret-touching plugin would have to be inverted.
+
+So the decision stands: keep the current system, enforce by review. This item only removes the part of
+that which depends on a human noticing a wrong string in a diff.
+
+## What to build
+
+1. **`secretPurposes?: string[]` on `PluginManifest`** (`src/servers/plugins/manifest.ts`), beside
+   `permissions`. Document it as the exhaustive list — a plugin with no secrets omits it and is then
+   asserted to use none.
+
+2. **A check in `scripts/docs-check.ts`** that walks each plugin directory, finds every
+   `encryptSecret('…'` / `decryptSecret('…'` literal, and fails naming the plugin, the file and the
+   undeclared purpose.
+
+3. **Backfill the declarations** for the plugins that already use one: `vault` → `vault`, `invoices` →
+   `invoiceshelf`, `kiosk` → `kiosk`, `proxy-manager` → `proxy-manager`, plus whatever a sweep turns
+   up. Note the names do **not** match the directories, which is exactly why the declaration is needed
+   rather than a directory-name rule.
+
+## What it does and does not buy
+
+It catches the accident and the careless copy-paste, which is most of what review is for. It does
+**not** stop a deliberately hostile plugin: the string could be computed at runtime, and a plugin that
+wanted the wallet's key could just call `key()` itself. That is fine and worth saying out loud —
+the threat model here is a plugin we reviewed, not one we did not. Third-party plugins that nobody
+reads are a different item in this theme, and they need one of the two declined designs above.
+
+Belongs with `[[third-party-plugin-sidecars-are-unconfined]]` — same theme, same shape: a plugin gets
+more of the host than its job needs, and today nothing but attention stands in the way.