Context — Hydra Platform

This document captures the operational context of the Hydra platform: how it is positioned within Conduction B.V., how it receives work, and how credentials flow through the pipeline.

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Purpose

Hydra takes structured OpenSpec change proposals and turns them into validated, security- scanned code on a feature branch — ready for a single human approval.

It is the factory, not the product. The applications it builds live under ConductionNL.

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Secrets & Tokens

Overview

Each container receives exactly the credentials it needs — no more. No shared org-admin tokens exist in the pipeline.

Container	Token variable	PAT scope	What it can do
Builder	GIT_TOKEN = HYDRA_BUILDER_TOKEN	contents:write, pull-requests:write	Clone, push branch, create draft PR, post issue comments
Code Reviewer	GIT_TOKEN = HYDRA_REVIEWER_TOKEN	pull-requests:write	Post PR review comments only
Security Reviewer	GIT_TOKEN = HYDRA_SECURITY_TOKEN	pull-requests:write	Post PR review comments only

All containers also receive ANTHROPIC_API_KEY (same key, all containers).

Injection method per deployment model

Local (Docker)

Secrets are loaded from secrets/.env (gitignored). The docker run command injects them via --env-file:

docker run \
  --env-file secrets/.env \
  -e GIT_TOKEN="${HYDRA_BUILDER_TOKEN}" \
  ...

The orchestrate.sh script reads secrets/.env and maps the correct token to GIT_TOKEN based on which stage is running:

# Builder stage:
GIT_TOKEN="${HYDRA_BUILDER_TOKEN}"

# Review stage:
GIT_TOKEN="${HYDRA_REVIEWER_TOKEN}"

# Security stage:
GIT_TOKEN="${HYDRA_SECURITY_TOKEN}"

See secrets/.env.example for the complete variable reference.

GitHub Actions

Secrets are stored in the GitHub organisation under Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions. Each workflow step injects the token for the specific container via env::

- name: Run Builder
  env:
    ANTHROPIC_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.HYDRA_ANTHROPIC_KEY }}
    GIT_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.HYDRA_BUILDER_TOKEN }}

GitHub Actions secrets are never echoed in logs. Each job only receives its own token.

Kubernetes (phase 3)

Secrets are stored as Kubernetes Secret objects in the hydra namespace, managed by ArgoCD via sealed secrets or external secrets operator. Each Job manifest mounts only the secret it needs via env.valueFrom.secretKeyRef:

env:
  - name: GIT_TOKEN
    valueFrom:
      secretKeyRef:
        name: hydra-builder-token
        key: token
  - name: ANTHROPIC_API_KEY
    valueFrom:
      secretKeyRef:
        name: hydra-anthropic-key
        key: key

Secrets are never mounted as files — always injected as environment variables.

What is NOT a secret

The following are not secrets and may appear in logs:

• REPO_URL — the GitHub URL of the target repository
• ISSUE_URL — the GitHub issue URL triggering the build
• PR_URL — the PR URL (Reviewers only)
• SPEC_PATH — path to the OpenSpec change inside the container
• GITHUB_ORG, HYDRA_PROJECT_NUMBER — organisation metadata

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Input Contract

Every container receives its inputs as environment variables (never as command-line args or mounted config files, to avoid leakage via /proc):

Variable	Required by	Description
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY	all	Claude API key
GIT_TOKEN	all	Scoped PAT for this persona
REPO_URL	all	https://github.com/ConductionNL/<app>
ISSUE_URL	Builder	GitHub issue that triggered the build
PR_URL	Reviewers	GitHub PR to review
SPEC_PATH	Builder	Path to openspec/changes/<change-name>/ inside the container