Making Secret Vaults Self-Discoverable: Metadata-First Secret Sync for Git Teams

This design addresses a critical challenge in team development: enabling developers to access the correct secret vault automatically after cloning a repository without exposing credentials to Git. By committing only metadata (vault IDs and environment mappings) rather than secrets themselves, teams gain faster onboarding and simpler workflows while maintaining security—a pragmatic alternative to encrypted .env files stored in version control.