Troubleshoot vault secrets

A vault secret, vault secret added using Guided Auth, or vault secret linked with an external vault integration can be empty or unresolved in your HTTP requests. An empty vault secret is a vault secret that doesn't have a value but is referenced in your request. An empty vault secret may or may not exist in your Postman Vault. An unresolved vault secret is a vault secret that exists in your Postman Vault but the value can't be accessed from your request.

Learn about Postman Vault features that require the Postman desktop app.

View empty and unresolved vault secrets

When you're working on an API request, Postman highlights empty and unresolved vault secret text in red in the URL builder, the Params tab, the Authorization tab, and the Headers tab. If your HTTP request has an empty or unresolved vault secret, an exclamation point displays on the Variables icon in the upper-right of the workbench.

To view all empty or unresolved vault secrets used in a request, do the following:

1. Open a request with empty or unresolved vault secrets, then select Variables to open the variables pane.
2. Under Variables in request, review your vault secrets with empty or unresolved values.

You can also open your Postman Vault to check if a vault secret exists and should be accessible from the request.

Fix empty vault secrets

To fix an empty vault secret that doesn't have a value, you can take the following actions:

• Enter a value - The vault secret doesn't have a value. Enter a value for an empty vault secret to store it in your Postman Vault. You can enter a value for a vault secret that doesn't exist in your Postman Vault, but the value is only stored locally in the request until you close its tab or sign out of Postman.
• Update the vault secret's key name - The vault secret's key name (in the key-value pair) was updated in your Postman Vault, but references to the vault secret use the previous key name. Learn how to edit the name of the vault secret from your Postman Vault to match the syntax used in your request.
  • (Vault secrets added using Guided Auth only) The suffix associated with the vault secret's key name was edited or removed, for example, :value in the vault secret postman-api-key:value. The suffix must be present in your Postman Vault and in references to the vault secret. If you edit or remove the suffix, it's recommended that you recreate the vault secret using Guided Auth.

Fix unresolved vault secrets

To fix an unresolved vault secret that Postman can't access, you can take the following actions:

• Turn on a vault secret - The vault secret is turned off in your Postman Vault. Hover over the reference to the secret or Error in the variables pane, then select Enable Secret. You can also turn on the vault secret from your Postman Vault.
• Update allowed domains - The vault secret isn't allowed to be in requests to the domain. Hover over the reference to the secret or Error in the variables pane, then select Update Domains. Your Postman Vault will open in a new tab, and you can update the allowed domains for the vault secret.
• Enter your vault key - You haven't entered your vault key since signing in to Postman. Hover over the reference to the secret or Error in the variables pane, enter your vault key, then select Access Vault. You can also open your Postman Vault and enter your vault key.
• Select a supported Postman Agent - If you're using an unsupported Postman Agent to send requests from the Postman web app, select the Desktop or Browser Agent, depending on which is best suited for your request.

To fix an unresolved vault secret that's linked with an external vault integration, you can also take the following actions:

• Use the Postman desktop app - You must use the Postman desktop app with external vault integrations.
• Reauthenticate with your external vault - Postman can't access a vault secret linked with an external vault if the integration isn't connected. This happens when you close and then open Postman, your authentication credentials expire, or you manually disconnect the integration. To fix this, reauthenticate with the external vault.
• Reconfigure your external vault - Postman can't access a vault secret linked with an external vault if the integration isn't configured correctly. Review the integration configuration to make sure you've entered the required details for retrieving the secret from your external vault provider.
• Grant permission to access your external vault - Postman can't access a vault secret linked with an external vault if you don't have permission to access or retrieve secrets from your external vault. Contact the Admin for your external vault provider to verify you have permission to retrieve secrets.