---
title: "Change the secrets bound to a computer"
method: PUT
path: "/computers/{id}/secrets"
tags: ["Computers"]
---

# Change the secrets bound to a computer

`PUT /computers/{id}/secrets`

## Request

- Base URL: `https://app.mandala.computer/api/v1`
- URL: `https://app.mandala.computer/api/v1/computers/{id}/secrets`
- Auth: HTTP bearer

Replaces the whole list; `[]` removes every binding. Each secret is resolved in the computer's own scope, as at create, and recorded at its LATEST revision — unless the entry names the `revision_id` it holds now, which keeps that one. Every start and restart delivers the latest value of each bound secret and moves its `revision_id` to it, so a replaced value needs at most a restart — one bound as a file, or as an environment variable on an image that supports it, is also sent to a running computer when it is replaced (see `PUT /secrets/{id}`), and moves `revision_id` once that lands. A binding says what was last delivered to the computer — or, until anything has been, the revision it was bound at — not what it is held to.

THE NEW VALUES ARRIVE AT THE NEXT START OR RESTART. A running computer keeps the environment it was started with until then, and a suspended one resumes holding the values it had when it was suspended. On an image that supports it, what starts AFTER the change is the exception: new shells and every `exec` on a running computer — plain or with `session: "desktop"` — see the new environment variables within seconds, with a removed one unset, while programs already running keep what they started with until the restart. A file newly bound or renamed waits for the restart either way. Restoring an older memory snapshot brings back that snapshot's values until the next reboot. A running computer whose change drops a secret or moves one to another revision cannot be suspended or memory-snapshotted until it restarts, because its memory may still hold the old value. Binding a computer for the first time needs a Linux template whose image can receive secrets, as create does, and the computer STOPPED: one started without secrets cannot receive them until it starts again, and a restart does not do that. 409 while it is running or suspended.

Send the `version` a read answered to change only the list you read: 409 if it has changed since. It answers 409 as well while a delivery is still in progress, and for a list that no longer binds, as a file, the secret the computer’s `browser_proxy.credentials_secret_id` names. It can also answer 409 during another operation, such as a stop, snapshot or suspend; retry once that operation finishes.

A nonempty list answers 409 while a workspace change is pending or the recorded binding scope disagrees with the computer’s current workspace. Before dispatch, a workspace change after binding resolution answers 409 if the computer remains visible to you; a scoped credential that loses access gets 404. An already accepted request can still answer 409 if the workspace changes while its reply is pending, even if that credential has lost access. Check the workspace change in the dashboard. For conflicting bindings, removing the entire list with `{"secrets":[]}` remains available wherever binding secrets is switched on (where it is not, every change to the list is a `400`); omit `version` if reading the list answers 409. Then check any pending workspace change again before binding secrets in the current workspace.

Requires the `member` role or higher.

## Path parameters

- `id` string, required

## Request body

- object
  - `secrets` object[], required: The whole list. At most 32.
    - `secret_id` string, required: The secret’s id, from `GET /secrets` or Settings. Each secret at most once.
    - `env` string: The environment variable the value is published under in the desktop session: letters, digits and underscores, not starting with a digit, at most 64 characters, each name at most once. Not a name the shell itself uses, which is refused with 400: bash special and startup variables such as `OPTIND`, `SECONDS`, `IFS`, `PS4`, `ENV` and `SHELLOPTS`, anything beginning `BASH_`, and anything beginning `__mandala_`.
    - `file` string: Instead of `env` (exactly one of the two): the file the value is published as, `/run/mandala-secrets/user/files/<file>`, readable by the desktop user and nobody else. Lowercase letters, digits, dashes and underscores, starting with a letter, at most 48 characters; at most 8 per computer. For what a program reads from a path — a kubeconfig, a key file. A file may hold any bytes, where an environment variable holds text. On some older images a list of files alone is refused with 400; bind at least one secret as `env` there.
    - `revision_id` string: Optional: the revision this computer holds now, to keep it. Omit to record the latest. Any other revision, including one it held before, is refused with `400` and nothing is changed.
  - `version` integer: The `version` a read of this list answered. Omit to change it whatever it is.

## Response `200`

The bindings as they now are.

- SecretBindings
  - `secrets` object[], required: The secrets this computer is bound to.
    - `secret_id` string, required: The secret’s id.
    - `revision_id` string, required: The revision last delivered to this computer, or the latest when it was bound if none has been delivered since — so a new binding on a stopped computer names a revision that has not reached it yet. Its next start or restart delivers the latest and moves this to it, and so does a replaced value that reaches the running computer live.
    - `env` string: The environment variable it is published under, for a secret bound as one.
    - `file` string: For a secret bound as a file instead: its name under `/run/mandala-secrets/user/files`.
  - `version` integer, required: Moves on every change. `0` until the list is first written; saving an empty list, or moving the computer to another workspace, writes it too.

## Other responses

- `400`: The request was malformed — a bad resolution string, a missing `command`, a `{pid}` or `{window}` that is not one. It is also what a well-formed request gets when the thing it names cannot be acted on and never will be — a restore onto a computer that is gone, for instance. Either way it is final: the message says what is wrong, and sending it again unchanged answers the same. That is the whole difference from a `503`, which means ask again shortly.
- `401`: Platform authentication required or refused: reason is missing, invalid, or revoked, with WWW-Authenticate: Bearer (invalid_token for invalid/revoked).
- `403`: The credential is recognized but its holder lacks the required role or membership, or the holder/account is suspended, or the holder has not verified their email address. An ordinary denial for too low a role may carry no `reason`. The email one carries none either, and its message begins `Verify your email before`: it answers a create, a clone of a computer or a snapshot, a new API key and a new SSH key, and is cleared by verifying the address in the dashboard. `reason: "revoked"` marks authority that is gone: a suspended account or a lost membership (refused as the request arrives, or if it happens while the request is in flight), or a role that was lowered while the request was in flight. The message identifies the refusal; replacing a valid key alone does not restore authority, and sending the same call again does not help.
- `404`: No such resource in your scope — a computer, snapshot, secret, webhook, SSH key, API key, workspace, operation and so on — or no such endpoint; a confirmed missing guest file is no such file in the guest.
- `405`: This public path exists but does not accept that method. Allow lists only its public methods, with HEAD for GET and metadata OPTIONS.
- `409`: Refused for the state something is in — resizing a computer that is running, running a command on one that is stopped, taking a snapshot while another capture of it is running. WHETHER RETRYING HELPS IS IN THE BODY, NOT THE STATUS, and this is the one thing to take from this entry. Some of these describe a state that is passing: a guest agent still inside its boot window, a guest agent busy with another call, a move already running on the account. Those clear on their own and the same request works a moment later. The rest describe a DECISION about the request you sent — the size does not fit, the computer is the wrong one for this, the saved session cannot travel — and no amount of retrying turns one of those into a yes. A client that treats 409 as uniformly transient loops forever on half of them. Where the platform can say which it is, it sends `reason` beside `error` — one word, meant to be switched on rather than read: `contention` and `starting` clear on their own, `unavailable` means the computer is not running and only starting it helps, `running` means the computer is running and only stopping it helps (a resize), `unsupported` means waiting will not change the answer — this computer cannot do it at all, or it needs another step first, which the message names (a stop, or removing its secret bindings, for example) — `exists` means a create-only upload found its path taken, `name_taken` means a secret of that name is already in that scope, `stale_revision` means a secret changed since the `revision_id` you sent was read (or a computer’s bound list since the `version` you sent), and `stale_capture` means the screenshot capture you named is no longer held: a newer one replaced it, or its host’s daemon restarted or the computer moved. `starting` covers the two minutes after a start or a restart, and after a reboot from inside the guest on a computer last cold-started recently enough to report one (a stop and a start gives an older one that); a guest agent that is still silent after that is a `502`. Match on that and never on the sentence, which is prose and is rewritten. **Absent means no classification was given** — treat it, and any word you do not recognise, as no answer, because not every refusal here has one yet. It is what the guest routes answer: the clipboard on a stopped computer used to be a 409 indistinguishable from a clipboard whose selection was claimed for an instant, and a blanket retry loop spun against the first until its deadline. Every 409 that clears on its own carries `contention` or `starting`: a host busy with another build or with no room for one, an operation already running on the same computer or snapshot (a capture, a copy, a delete, a restore or clone reading it, another agent run), a lock another request holds, a move or a delivery settling. So a 409 with no word, or with any other word, is not one that waiting fixes: read the sentence for the step it names. The ones worth knowing by name, because each has a next step that is not "wait": A resize past what the computer’s host can run carries `move`, an object rather than a message: `{"required":true,"possible":true}` means another host in this region could run it and the computer has to be moved there first — `POST /computers/{id}/move` with the same sizing fields is how you agree to that, and it is a separate call because relocating a computer is not something a resize should do to you quietly. `possible:false` means nowhere in the region can, and the size is the thing to change. The move itself then refuses for the things it re-decides at the moment it runs, and only one of those is worth waiting on: a computer that is running or suspended has to be stopped or resumed-and-stopped by you, a size that fits where it already is wants an ordinary resize instead, and a region with nowhere to put it wants a smaller size. `Another computer on this account is being moved right now` is the one that clears by itself, and it carries `reason: "contention"` — one move runs per account, and `GET /moves` says which. And the terminal socket refuses twice over: `reason: "unavailable"` with `resume_required: true` on a suspended computer, which clears when you start it and not before, and `reason: "unsupported"` on a running computer whose hardware carries no terminal channel — one last started before interactive terminals existed — which needs a stop and a start. Not a restart, which resets the same machine, and not a retry, which never comes good. `reason` says which of these clear. `contention`: another operation (a stop, snapshot or suspend) or a secrets delivery is in progress, another change to this list is still being saved, the computer is being moved to another workspace, its workspace changed while this change was being saved, its disk is still being copied (a create or clone still building), or its host could not read whether it is running just now; send it again once that passes. `stale_revision`: the list changed since the `version` you sent was read, or another change landed while this one was being saved; read it again and make the change against what it says now. `unsupported`: bindings that cannot be read here, a workspace change whose outcome was lost (check it in the dashboard), recorded bindings that belong to a workspace the computer is no longer in (remove them all with `{"secrets":[]}`), a computer whose process its host cannot read until support repairs the host, a running session its secrets were never delivered to that nothing is delivering to now (stop it), a first binding while the computer is running or suspended, or a list that drops the browser proxy’s credentials file; waiting changes none of them.
- `413`: What you sent, or asked for, is past a size limit. A JSON request body is capped at 1 MiB unless the route states its own limit: `POST /computers/{id}/exec` takes up to 4 MiB, and some routes take less; guest file transfers, template documents and the clipboard have limits of their own. The message names the limit that applied. This route reads at most 16 KiB (16384 bytes) of request body, less than the general cap.
- `429`: You are asking faster than your plan allows. `Retry-After` says how many seconds to wait, and every metered response — anything past authentication and the re-check that your credential’s authority still holds — carries `RateLimit-Remaining`, so you do not have to be refused to find out. A `401`, a `403` from that re-check, an `OPTIONS` answer and an unexpected `500` carry none. The budget is spent in proportion to what a call costs rather than per request. What a call costs, in budget units, by kind (each operation’s exact figure is its `x-rate-cost` in the OpenAPI document): 1 to read one thing; 5 for a listing that spans the fleet, and 5 for a call into a running guest such as a screenshot or an exec; 10 for a power change and 10 to move file bytes; 25 for `GET /usage`, `GET /credits`, creating a public URL, and creating, rotating or testing a webhook; 50 to capture a snapshot; 100 to create, clone or restore a computer, and 100 to start an agent run, whose actions are then charged as they happen. The account-wide budget, as what an idle caller may spend at once and what refills each minute: No plan 1200 at once and 1200 a minute; Solo 4800 at once and 4800 a minute; Studio 12000 at once and 12000 a minute; Swarm 21600 at once and 21600 a minute. A single API key gets half of either. A `401` for a missing or unusable credential costs nothing: it is refused before anything is metered. A few refusals at the door cost one unit: a `403` because the role is too low or the route refuses an API key confined to a workspace, a `404` for a path that matches nothing, a `405`, and an `Idempotency-Key` answered from its stored result or still in progress. Everything else is charged in full when it is admitted, before it is carried out, so a refusal after that has spent the whole cost: a `400`, `402` or `409` from the route, a `403` its handler sends (on most routes, a suspended account included), and a model provider’s `401` on an agent run. The budget belongs to the account and is shared across everything on it, and any single API key may spend at most half of it. `RateLimit-Limit` is whichever of those two is binding on the request that carried it — usually the per-key half, and the account-wide figure when other keys have already spent more of it than this one has. All three `RateLimit-*` headers describe the same one, so `limit` minus `remaining` is what has been spent against it. A few `429`s are not about this budget, say so in their message, and can carry no `Retry-After`: a model provider’s rate limit relayed on an agent run. The cap on forks of one snapshot waiting for their secrets sends its own bounded expiry-based `Retry-After` with `reason: "contention"` (see `POST /snapshots/{id}/clone`).
- `500`: The application could not finish this: an unexpected exception, a build that broke, or a storage fault. Application refusals carry the request correlation ID; unexpected internal details are not returned.
- `503`: Something this depends on — a hypervisor, a store, or a host’s capacity — could not answer or take this right now. A read can be retried shortly. A change answered `503` may or may not have happened — a failure after the request was sent is answered the same way, with or without a warning in the message — so read the current state before retrying anything that is not safe to repeat, such as a create or a command. On the collection reads, `allow_partial=1` accepts a knowingly short answer instead. Also a change the computer’s host could not save: nothing was changed, and it can be sent again shortly.

---

[API](https://skmtc.dev/mandala/apis/mandala-computer-api.md) · [All operations](https://skmtc.dev/mandala/apis/mandala-computer-api/llms.txt) · [OpenAPI document](https://skmtc.dev/mandala/apis/mandala-computer-api/revisions/2afbb87fa703?raw)