Platform & DevOps·Secrets, identity and the supply chain
the same API key is in a pipeline variable, two config maps, a wiki page and someone's laptop, and rotating it breaks three things.
Secret sprawl
Also calledcredential sprawl, secrets everywhere
The same credential copied into many systems until nobody knows the full set of places it lives. It is what makes rotation frightening and therefore rare, which is how a five-year-old key ends up in production. The remedy is a single source with short-lived derived credentials, so copies expire on their own rather than persisting until someone finds them.