# Proper place to set "secret" environment variables

**URL:** <https://discuss.bitrise.io/t/proper-place-to-set-secret-environment-variables/2099>\
**Category:** Question & Answer\
**Created:** [June 26, 2017, 11:14pm UTC](https://discuss.bitrise.io/t/proper-place-to-set-secret-environment-variables/2099 "2017-06-26T23:14:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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**Author:** ![godreikrisztian](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discuss.bitrise.io/godreikrisztian/32/22_2.png) [@godreikrisztian](https://discuss.bitrise.io/u/godreikrisztian)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2017, 1:30pm UTC](https://discuss.bitrise.io/t/proper-place-to-set-secret-environment-variables/2099/2 "2017-06-28T13:30:07Z")

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Hi @clee46,  
thanks for the question!

> [@clee46](#):
>
> My question is - is this the proper place to define these variables? If so, then what types of variables would be defined in the Secret tab?

You should define your secret variables on Secrets tab (in Workflow Editor).  
These variables are not part of your bitrise config (bitrise.yml), instead they are stored separately.  
For security reasons these variables are not applied in case of pull request, to avoid malicious access to secret infos.

> [@clee46](#):
>
> If I should be defining the above variables in the Secret tab, then how can I define them so that they vary based upon which workflow is running?

The secrets env vars are config level variables, so you can not define it per workflow. Possible workaround is to prefix/suffix the variable names based on in which workflow you want to use them.

Read more in devcenter: [Managing Secrets locally - Bitrise Docs](http://devcenter.bitrise.io/bitrise-cli/secrets/)

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_[View the full topic](https://discuss.bitrise.io/t/proper-place-to-set-secret-environment-variables/2099)._