Ruby on Rails, retrieving API key from secrets.yml - ruby-on-rails

Question

Can someone help me understand how to retrieve an API key if I'm storing it into secrets.yml?
If I have some kind of google API key 'yt_key':
secrets.yml
development:
secret_key_base: 390257802398523094820 #some key
yt_key: A423092389042430 #some key
test:
secret_key_base: 43208947502938530298525#some key
yt_key: A423092389042430 #some key
production:
secret_key_base: <%= ENV["SECRET_KEY_BASE"] %>
yt_key: <%= ENV["YT_KEY"] %>
I'm just following the examples, this is how I would set it up right?
So if I publish this to production, I would save the A423092389042430 in heroku and under YT_KEY, correct?
But in development, would I do it this way to retrieve the data:
in /config/application.rb
Yt.configure do |config|
config.api_key = '<%= ENV["YT_KEY"] %>'
end
or should this be in the the class:
module Sample
class Application < Rails::Application
Yt.configure do |config|
config.api_key = '<%= ENV["YT_KEY"] %>'
end
config.active_record.raise_in_transactional_callbacks = true
end
end
Or did I set up the configure wrong?

Answer 1

ENV["YT_KEY"] references the 'YT_KEY' environment variable which you'll have to set with a Heroku config variable.
In your app, you can access your secrets like this:
Rails.application.secrets.key_name
Since you're storing the 'YT_KEY' as an environment variable in production only, you should configure Yt like so:
(You can do this in a initializer file located at app/initializers/yt.rb)
Yt.configure do |config|
config.api_key = Rails.application.secrets.yt_key
end
That way, the correct key will be set in each environment.
It's good practice to use different keys for each environment, so should get another key for your production environment. Also, you should avoid storing secret production environment keys in the code. That's why it's common to use ENV variables for production keys.
Let me know if you need any clarification!

Answer 2

Do it this way, we are doing this way since a long time and working very well for us and this is a good convention as well.
secrets.yml
development:
secret_key_base: 390257802398523094820 #some key
yt_key: A423092389042430 #some key
test:
secret_key_base: 43208947502938530298525#some key
yt_key: A423092389042430 #some key
production:
secret_key_base: <%= ENV["SECRET_KEY_BASE"] %>
yt_key: <%= ENV["YT_KEY"] %>
Add these line to your application.rb file
config_files = ['secrets.yml']
config_files.each do |file_name|
file_path = File.join(Rails.root, 'config', file_name)
config_keys = HashWithIndifferentAccess.new(YAML::load(IO.read(file_path)))[Rails.env]
config_keys.each do |k,v|
ENV[k.upcase] ||= v
end
end
and now you can access yt_key this way ENV["YT_KEY"] or any other key you add like some_key to ENV["SOME_KEY"].
It's often recommended to not put your custom keys in secret.yml instead make another file like app_keys.yml and put all keys there.

Answer 3

You can also use Figaro gem.
Once installed, you'll have a config/application.yml file. Inside it you can store your api keys etc.:
SENDGRID_USERNAME: a-name
SENDGRID_PASSWORD: password
Now, anywhere in your .rb files, you can reference it using vars:
# Noticed how I keep my vars uppercase throughout.
ENV["SENDGRID_USERNAME"]
ENV["SENDGRID_PASSWORD"]
# Production vars go below the `production` line
production:
ENV["MY_PRODUCTION_VAR"]
If using those env keys inside your html.erb then you'll need to wrap it with <%= ... %>