borgmatic/docs/reference/configuration/credentials/file.md

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title: File-based credentials eleventyNavigation: key: • File

parent: 🔒 Credentials

New in version 1.9.11 borgmatic supports reading credentials from arbitrary file paths. To use this feature, start by writing your credential into a file that borgmatic has permission to read. Take care not to include anything in the file other than your credential. (borgmatic is smart enough to strip off a trailing newline though.)

You can consume that credential file in your borgmatic configuration. For instance, if your credential file is at /credentials/borgmatic.txt, do this:

encryption_passphrase: "{credential file /credentials/borgmatic.txt}"

With this in place, borgmatic reads the credential from the file path.

The {credential ...} syntax works for several different options in a borgmatic configuration file besides just encryption_passphrase. For instance, the username, password, and API token options within database and monitoring hooks support {credential ...}:

postgresql_databases:
    - name: invoices
      username: postgres
      password: "{credential file /credentials/database.txt}"